Three thoughts on the NYT piece entitled “The Evangelical Crackup”.
1. The evangelical political leadership we’ve known for the past 20 years is headed out.
The founding generation of leaders like Falwell and Dobson, who first guided evangelicals into Republican politics 30 years ago, is passing from the scene. Falwell died in the spring. Paul Weyrich, 65, the indefatigable organizer who helped build Falwell’s Moral Majority and much of the rest of the movement, is confined to a wheelchair after losing his legs because of complications from a fall. Dobson, who is 71 and still vigorous, is already planning for a succession at Focus on the Family; it is expected to tack toward the less political family advice that is its bread and butter.
The engineers of the momentous 1980s takeover that expunged political and theological moderates from the Southern Baptist Convention are retiring or dying off, too. And in September, when I called a spokesman for the ailing Presbyterian televangelist D. James Kennedy, another pillar of the Christian conservative movement, I learned that Kennedy had “gone home to the Lord” at 2 a.m. that morning.
Meanwhile, a younger generation of evangelical pastors — including the widely emulated preachers Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — are pushing the movement and its theology in new directions. There are many related ways to characterize the split: a push to better this world as well as save eternal souls; a focus on the spiritual growth that follows conversion rather than the yes-or-no moment of salvation; a renewed attention to Jesus’ teachings about social justice as well as about personal or sexual morality. However conceived, though, the result is a new interest in public policies that address problems of peace, health and poverty — problems, unlike abortion and same-sex marriage, where left and right compete to present the best answers.
Yes, the existing leaders – Dobson, Land, Perkins in particular – still have the power to convene Christian conservatives but their power among the rank-and-file evangelicals is ebbing.
For under-25 evangelicals, men and women who have grown up on the Internet and IM and My Space and YouTube, these men hold little, if any, power. They are at best the people their parents listened to and they are at worst, those people their parents listened to.
And while Rick Warren is obviously the most powerful pastor in the country, it isn’t actually clear who will fill the roles Dobson and co. once played. It may be that evangelicals turn toward more local influences defined by their spirituality and not their politics.
2. While evangelical identification with the Republican party is down that doesn’t mean they will go to the Dems.
Today the president’s support among evangelicals, still among his most loyal constituents, has crumbled. Once close to 90 percent, the president’s approval rating among white evangelicals has fallen to a recent low below 45 percent, according to polls by the Pew Research Center. White evangelicals under 30 — the future of the church — were once Bush’s biggest fans; now they are less supportive than their elders. And the dissatisfaction extends beyond Bush. For the first time in many years, white evangelical identification with the Republican Party has dipped below 50 percent, with the sharpest falloff again among the young, according to John C. Green, a senior fellow at Pew and an expert on religion and politics. (The defectors by and large say they’ve become independents, not Democrats, according to the polls.)
I have been saying for the last year and see no reason to stop saying that the change that is occurring among evangelicals is most fundamentally a spiritual shift. Evangelicals have been part of the Great Sellout for the last eight years – worshipping at the altar of George W. Bush. They have seen what happens when Jesus is sold out for politics. I don’t see them rushing back anytime soon.
3. The evangelical war is coming.
In the past, Hybels has scrupulously avoided criticizing conservative Christian political figures like Falwell or Dobson. But in my talk with him, he argued that the leaders of the conservative Christian political movement had lost touch with their base. “The Indians are saying to the chiefs, ‘We are interested in more than your two or three issues,’ ” Hybels said. “We are interested in the poor, in racial reconciliation, in global poverty and AIDS, in the plight of women in the developing world.”
He brought up the Rev. Jim Wallis, the lonely voice of the tiny evangelical left. Wallis has long argued that secular progressives could make common cause with theologically conservative Christians. “What Jim has been talking about is coming to fruition,” Hybels said.
Conservative Christian leaders in Washington acknowledge a “leftward drift” among evangelicals, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and the movement’s chief advocate in Washington. He told me he believed that Hybels and many of his admirers had, in effect, fallen away from orthodox evangelical theology. Perkins compared the phenomenon to the century-old division in American Protestantism between the liberal mainline and the orthodox evangelical churches. “It is almost like another split coming within the evangelicals,” he said.
There are those on the right for whom a conservative political ideology represent the fifth Gospel of the New Testament. Over the next year expect them to make increasingly spiritual arguments to justify their politics – attempting to persuade those who have left the Republican party and conservative politics to come back into the camp because it is the “Jesus way.” And expect many conservative and moderate pastors, theologians, and lay people to become ever more aggressive in countering that argument.
posted October 28, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Great post, David. Since I’m not knowledgeable enough to really add anything to it, I will simply ask a minor question:
Every election year, when Democratic candidates appear at African-American churches the Sunday before Election Day, there are threats that the churches have violated their tax-exempt status. (Usually, to be careful, the minister introduces them in some non-partisan way like, “As you know, Sen. Clinton is involved in important issues of the day, so we thought it was good to hear from her at this time,” or something like that.)
But many of the actions FROM THE PULPIT which Kirkpatrick described in the NYT Magazine article seemed to go far beyond that in advocacy for the Republican Party and for specific candidates. (To say nothing of those millions of “abortion is evil” flyers distributed in conservative churches by the Christian Coalition that very same Sunday before Election Day.)
Not that the Bush Administration at the political level would ever target this, but do you know if bureaucrats with the Justice Department and the IRS ever targeted that? And did any of this ever interfere with (or at least complicate) your faith-based initiatives work at the White House?
(Maybe that wasn’t so minor … LOL.)
posted October 28, 2007 at 10:53 pm
It is not a great shift towards the left that is happening, it is the great apostasy. Just compare Jin Wallis and his Leftist hordes to the Apostles. True, Christianity is not GOP talking points, BUT, the Democrats taste of their fruit is sickening and has been proven deadly. As soon as Christians that imbibe Democrat politics realize, that they have completely sold out the faith to liars and cheats, that use the poor to pay for their wealthy lifestyles, they will suffer at a far greater rate than anything the Bush administration is throwing at them.
David, you haven’t (and I assert can never) proven where the Democrats offer Christians anything except to embrace heresy and lies. You never step up and prove their worth “Biblically.” Why not?
Democrats have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are anti-Christians. Abortion, gay marriage and socialism/taxation are the glowing warning signs. And the anti-Christian “hate crimes legislation” is ghettoizing Christians that want to preach the truth. The youth of today has been so brainwashed by Hollywood’s and Wall Street’s advertisement-education techniques, that abominations are just more minority classifications. But, when they look in the mirror in years to come and see King Bera looking back at them, then, and only then, will the world get a glimpse of a revivial.
James Dobson and Jerry Falwell preach the truth about Christian morality. There can be no compromise. “Tolerance” to a Secularist, Humanist, Liberal, Progressive means only one thing, that YOU become a Democrat. Their closed minds are ubiquitous to their movements and agenda. Their minds are seared closed to doing what is right just as was foretold.
The Christian youth are not stupid. They are tired and weary from too many single parent houselholds. But God will not completely abandon them to the hedonism awaiting them with a joining of hands with the Democrat party. The pendulum may swing for a brief time to this new powerful Leftist machine, but, this was prophesied to happen. The millions of Christians joining the Church are not cheering for Gay Rights and Abortion unfettered to take hold of the world. No indeed, they are praying for men and women to follow the Lord. The Gospel leads the Church because the Gospel IS The Evangel. And what The Left rejects more than anything else is the Gospel of Christ and the whole council of God.
It is far past time for YOU David Kuo, to prove how Christians can support Democrats and hold to the mission presented – in its entirety -from from the Gospel of Matthew to the book of Jude. Please atart with the family and marriage as preached by Christ Jesus. If “divorce” breaks up a “marriage” between a man and a woman, then same-gender marriage is impossible to begin with, as Jesus is clear about what sex the bride and groom are to be. OR, you could deal with another anti-family issue the high taxation of the family, which cause untold sufering of millions and millions of married couples and their children.
It’s time to put up David. You keep peddling the Democrats, now it is time to show how their product is not a sham. Wallis versus Dobson? What a cruel joke Wallis is. His words and actions echo Secular Humanism 101. They speak Democrat politics.
They DO NOT help the poor. New Orleans proves that. The conditions of our inner cities proves that. The conditions of our broken and never started homes in poor neighborhoods prove that. Democrats look, talk and act just like enemies of Christians AND of America. They NEVER hold our enemies accountable. Neville Chamberlain’s they are not. Complicit in the attacks on our people and lands they are. Too many enemies of American freedom are supported by Democrats. Democrats do not appease, they support our enemies. How many Hollywood elites – every single one a Democrat – run to cheer Chavez and Castro?
If war in Iraq is the ONLY thing driving Christians away from the Republicans, then what Democrats do to harm innocent people with their political power is something that Christians will come to see sooner or later. And never is that supportable.
posted October 28, 2007 at 11:00 pm
I believe this is the one attempt that became well known, Larry-
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-allsaints24sep24,0,6570946.story?coll=la-home-center
What I find interesting about the magazine article is the insistent effort at insularity, the mix of denial about the outside world and deliberately locking it out.
posted October 28, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Those pamplets should just state:
“Democrats are evil.”
Honesty is not a bad thing to preach.
posted October 28, 2007 at 11:15 pm
a person has to be honest to preach honesty. I’m prepared for the arguments that the old line was holding up Jesus. I hope these people can explain themselves better to their maker than they have to me.
posted October 29, 2007 at 8:00 am
I have never seen hatred preached more acutely than when preached by a so-called Christian. Thanks for diminishing me without knowing the first thing about me, Donny, based on a label. How Christian of you….
posted October 29, 2007 at 8:09 am
“A person has to be honest to preach honesty. I’m prepared for the arguments that the old line was holding up Jesus. I hope these people can explain themselves better to their maker than they have to me.”
Posted by: Doug
Doug,
You only need to read and compare what Christ Jesus (The Gospels) and the Apostles presented “for” Christians to live by, to see that people like Falwell and Dobson preach the same thing as did Jesus, Peter, John, James, Jude and Paul. Leftists on the other hand, are teachers like Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Dawkins.
I’ve listened to the arguments of both the Leftists and “the old line.” I’m sticking with “The faith delivered ONLY once to the Saints.”
You know, “the old line.”
Another old line: “Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.”
So much for “progressive” theology.
Matter of fact . . . let’s keep things in context. The following is from the New Testament:
Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?”
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
////
And continuing on the theme of good teachers and false (bad) teachers in the Church . . .:
“Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.”
(Even when it comes to mundane things like food.)
posted October 29, 2007 at 8:33 am
No Donny, you have to read the whole Gospel and the whole New Testament. Jesus and the Apostles, as far as is recorded didn’t run around saying “Covet, fornicate, exert power over your neighbors and trouble strangers and hurl invective at your peers, get rich, eat pigs but for the love of He who sent me have nothing to do with homos and have all the babies you can.” The first commandments are to love God with all your heart and all your soul and your might and your neighbor as yourself.
Second, if you are honest, “All Democrats are Evil” is false witness. Plain and simple. Once again, in Christian love and friendship I’d point out to you, to do with as you will that you are continually absolutist when talking about Democrats and morally relativist when talking about Republicans. I’m a hypocrite, sinner, and grouchy fat man so I don’t judge you but if you really want to be honest with yourself and you are so concerned with biblical proof, try to find a bible passage that supports using different standards for people you don’t like than you hold for those you do.
And I don’t mean a random clutter of scripture, I mean something that speaks along the lines of “Your enemies test and find blemished at every turn, but with your allies find all their errors to be meaningless.”
posted October 29, 2007 at 8:52 am
If divorce was disapproved of by Jesus, and God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral, does that suggest that the state ought to prevent divorce and punish adulterers?
This was a common view until pretty recently. In Ireland divorce only became legally possible in the 1990s.
Would a Biblically-based politics eliminate civil divorce and make adultery a crime?
Just wondering what the implications are. All that stuff about leftist hordes,glowing warning signs, abominations, great apostasy, ghettoizing Christians– that’s pretty scary stuff! But I’d kind of like to know what the nuts and bolts of the Biblical political program might be, before I sign on. The pure marriage bed bit sounds pretty good, but I’d like some concrete details.
Thanks!
posted October 30, 2007 at 8:19 am
Skipchurch, it’s been tried. It was the Puritan reign in Massachusetts. The end result was that it had to censor printers, burn books and pamphlets, ban public assembly, and ultimately resorted to hanging its most adamant critics- all Quakers. Thereby the Puritans become the false witnesses, authoritarians, and murderers it claimed to transcend. (Quakers were also expelled from Virginia by religious leaders and slaveholders, but put up less of a fight there.) The King of England heard of the abuses and ended up disempowering the Puritan government in the 1660s. The Puritans then ruined their remaining political standing with the Salem Witch trials around 1690.
The First Amendment ultimately resulted from the record of abuses committed against Quakers in Boston in the 1650s and 1660s. It’s been the bane of theocrats and neopuritans ever since.
The most famous of the Quakers involved was a woman named Mary Dyer. There are several accounts of her struggle online, and ultimately her hanging (by which she defeated the Puritans, nonetheless). There is a statue of Mary Dyer at the state capitol building on Beacon Hill in Massachusetts. Massachusetts took quite a lesson away from the affair; it has been an anti-theocratic, anti-neopuritan state ever since. Even now it remains cheerfully at war with theocrats- legalizing gay marriage was in part a choice to take them on yet again.
posted October 30, 2007 at 9:29 am
Jillian– yep. Those Quakers just had to go! Of course with two of my kids in Quaker schools I’m more than a little leary of the new crop of “Biblically-based Christians.”
The Puritan experiment is so interesting. My family was a part of that, arriving in 1630, and I’m glad to say both Massachusetts and my family survived on this continent.
It is very striking to me how little history, and indeed how little thought, has informed the views of the most rabid of the Biblically-based Christians of today. They much prefer a posture of pious outrage to devoting any effort to considering how the actual governance of our country might be improved for the benefit of the citizens.
“Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles; but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world” – Bertrand Russell