The Religious Right After Bush

Jeff Sharlet is right that the "end of the religious right" has been breathlessly predicted many times before, and that evangelical Christians aren't going to cease being an important force in American life just because their supposed "crack-up" was splashed on the cover of the Times Magazine. And Father Neuhaus is certainly right to point out the silliness of liberal mood swings where social conservatism is concerned: As he writes, they "scare themselves by creating the boogeyman of a monolithic theocratic assault and then console themselves that the advancing forces are in disarray." (You can read Sharlet's post, in part, as a furious scream directed at suddenly-complacent liberals: "Don't you get it! The boogeyman's still out there ... homeschooling its children ... telling them not to have sex before marriage ... running crisis pregnancy centers ... trying to convert the heathen overseas - and it'll get us eventually!")

But while the Times article in question didn't deliver anything close to what was promised by its over-the-top advertising and sweeping claims, I think its core points, however modest, were all worthy of note: First, that the close personal identification evangelicals felt with George W. Bush has given way to a certain amount of disillusionment with his Presidency, which feeds into a suspicion of politics in general that's always latent among conservative Christians; second, that the issue matrix, if you will, for religious conservatives may be slowly changing, with concerns about the environment and global poverty rising and the focus on homosexuality, in particular, diminishing; and third, that "none of the 2008 Republican front-runners come close to measuring up to President Bush in the eyes of the evangelical faithful," which is creating significant fault lines and stresses as social conservatives decide where to cast their vote, stresses which didn't really exist over the past eight years.

So yes, as Fr. Neuhaus writes, "there is no evangelical crackup ... there is a normalization of conservative Christian activism in the public square. As on the left, organizations and activists on the right maneuver mightily to direct sometimes contentious constituencies toward their preferred political outcomes." But it's precisely as a look at some of the arguments associated with this maneuvering that - once I tuned out the heavy breathing - I found David Kirkpatrick's article to be an interesting read.

Comments

Thanks for giving me some credit, Ross, but I think you mischaracterize my argument (and my political position; I've written against liberalism almost as often as against conservatism). I'm not saying "the boogeyman" is still out there -- I'm saying that a movement with which liberals as well as leftists disagree remains strong and capable of effectively pursuing goals to which liberals and leftists are opposed. That's no cause for hysteria, because that's business as usual in what Fr. Neuhaus calls, rather simplistically, the "public square." Theocentric politics have been a part of American life since the beginning, for better and worse. It won't "get us eventually" -- "we" -- liberals and conservatives and everyone else -- have that theocentric DNA in our bones. It's part of being an American. (A case made, btw, to different effect, by conservative pundit David Gelernter in his most recent book.)

So let's not get hysterical. But let's be realistic: If we on the left are opposed to certain goals promoted by evangelical conservatism, now is no time for celebration. Indeed, it's time to get organized, since evangelical conservatism is outgrowing its limited relationship with the Republican Party. Kirkpatrick is correct in saying that religious conservatives are achieving this by softening and adding nuance to their rhetoric. But one should never mistake rhetoric for the whole idea. Here's Frank Schaeffer, son of the much-misunderstood Francis -- the intellectual "gravitas" of the modern Christian Right -- and once a key activist in the rise of that movement himself:

"The people my father called to civil disobedience went one step further – they got elected to congress, they became judges, they now run institutions, and so there rhetoric has changed, it’s not as shrill. But the theology, the philosophy is the same, only now it comes from the inside."

Posted by Jeff Sharlet | October 31, 2007 1:29 PM

You're right on both counts; Kirkpatrick's piece was oversold by the NYT, and once you actually read what he says it turns out to be important. The one thing that most struck me about his piece is something I've been observing on the ground here at the Buckle of the Bible Belt, a.k.a. Nashville--that congregants are starting to rebel against dominant pastors [This, BTW, is true of black as well as white congregations here]. There's a contradiction built into the whole megachurch phenomenon, namely that, while in church polity terms it stresses the independent congregation with the pastor "called" by the flock, in practice the charismatic founder is the dominant figure. This has parallels in the Southern Baptist Convention [which is headquartered here]. Since the conservative takeover, the SBC's leadership has become increasingly authoritarian; not too long ago I can recall an SB seminarian defending a minister fighting with his congregation by drawing an analogy with the Roman Catholic hierarchy, insisting that the congregation had to submit to the teachings of the church. So much for the venerable Baptist belief in the priesthood of the believer!

But I think the magic is wearing off for a lot of congregants. The Religious Right was born out of a set of issues that arose in the 1970s and was exploited by a collection of televangelists, megachurch pastors, the SB coup leaders, and political activists like Weyrich. But not only are those guys getting long in the tooth, but their issues are getting long in the tooth, and resonate less and less with the new Pharaohs that knew not Jerry. The RR was born out of a sense of embattlement in the face of the Culture Wars of the seventies; increasingly evangelicals feel comfortable in their society, while at the same time finding the old rallying cries not only puzzling, but in the case of the anti-gay obsession downright embarrassing to the Christian cause. Finally, you add to that the disillusionment with Bush and the whole Faustian bargain with the Republican Party, on most explicit display with David Kuo. Evangelicals aren't going away, but they're starting to realize they've been led into a trap-- a trap that, in the forms of the "new atheism" and increasing hostility to evangelical Christianity on the part of the young, is damaging the very faith the Religious Right ostensibly was out to preserve.

Posted by David | October 31, 2007 1:50 PM

My apologies - that "get *us*" was ill-chosen, Jeff, since I didn't mean to call you a liberal ... I just meant to suggest, as you say, that both leftists and liberals find common ground in their opposition to the religious right.

As for the rest - I don't disagree, obviously, that religious conservatives remain a potent force in American life. But I don't see much evidence, demographically or politically, that they're a *growing* force; yes, conservative Dems have won some swing-state elections by playing to their concerns, but by and large the emerging Democratic majority is built on winning a majority of lukewarm Catholics and Protestants and supermajorities of secular voters, not making a big play for the Olasky vote. And I do think there's an element of not taking yes for an answer in your response to the Times piece. Sure, evangelicals worried about global warming are more likely to go in for free market solutions than you'd like - but even having them admit it's a problem is a big change, and I suspect there's more overlap between your approach to environmental issues and theirs than you think. (Though maybe not: I don't know what your ideal approach is.) Similarly, I do think that advocates of gay rights should treat a shift among Christians toward talking about homosexuality as one sin among many as a victory - even if it theoretically moves said Christians toward a more "maximalist" position on sex, in practice it opens more space for the acceptance of gay unions, by cooling down the rhetoric floating around in that "public square" everyone's talking about. And I think evangelicals had a *much* better chance of stopping the gay rights movement in its tracks (a cause at which they've largely failed) than they do of spreading, say, the "every man's battle" narrative of sex beyond a pretty narrow segment of the American population.

Again, I'm not saying that the left shouldn't see evangelicalism as a dangerous force, by its lights. But I don't see very much the evidence for your suggestion that the religious right, by outgrowing its home in the GOP, is poised to see its influence dramatically *increase*.

Posted by Ross Douthat | October 31, 2007 2:08 PM

Does this mean my conservative acquaintances will stop considering me a bad Catholic because I consider more issues than only abortion when voting?

Posted by Peter Bautista | October 31, 2007 2:48 PM

Ross, like almost all cultural movements, conservative evangelicalism's influence becomes diluted as it grows. That's the compromise social movements make in exchange for power. Feminism, once (no more) the bete noire of American fundamentalism, is a case in point, transformed from a radical critique of gender and class power in its early days to a mild, upper-middle-class female empowerment scheme today. What was exciting about feminism's critique has mostly vanished from mainstream debate, but its diluted effects -- far more women working, legalized abortion, freedom of divorce -- are the very symptoms the religious right once rallied against.

I think we're seeing something similar with conservative evangelicalism now -- its radical critique is fading fast (tho, if history can be trusted at all, it'll return), but its diluted effects are more widespread. That's evident in the erosion of access to abortion (not so much through legislation as through the disappearence of clinics); the widespread acceptance of the "clash of civilizations" idea that was once restricted to neocon wonks; the legislative linkage of sexual purity to anti-AIDS efforts that will surely survive the Bush adminstration; Democratic support for "religious freedom" initiatives that in practice more often function as protection for evangelical proselytization; Democratic support for "Bible literacy" courses based on a textbook by a former official of Chuck Colson's very conservative Prison Fellowship; etc., etc. The irony of the demise of the old Christian Right is that we've entered a more uniformly pious period in American life than any in decades. The new soft fundamentalists don't draw the lines sharply, and neither do most liberals. Advocates of a banal unity that transcends politics regardless of real differences celebrate this as "common ground." But those on the left and the right -- and even those in the middle -- who take their ideas and their convictions seriously will recognize that conservative evangelicalism has been a major factor in the erasure of serious debate.

Posted by Jeff Sharlet | October 31, 2007 3:46 PM

Re: That's evident in the erosion of access to abortion (not so much through legislation as through the disappearence of clinics);

Is this due to the Religious Right (and if so, how) or is it due to the same forces that are constricting healthcare access in general?

Re: the widespread acceptance of the "clash of civilizations" idea that was once restricted to neocon wonks

I don't see that as having anything whatsoever to do with the Religious Right. But it is an old theme in American foreign policy, not at all restricted to a handful of Neocons. The Cold War was largely based on that sort of theme, which also showed up in the old "Yellow Peril" paranoia in the pre WWII era.

Re: Democratic support for "religious freedom" initiatives that in practice more often function as protection for evangelical proselytization

Can you give an example of this? Nothing immediately comes to mind, unless you are referring to some mainly symbolic rhetoric directed at oppressive regimes abroad.

Posted by Jonf | October 31, 2007 10:10 PM