The Religious Right Makes a Left Turn

Many non-religious Libertarians have long wondered why the Conservative movement in America, which was supposedly predicated on less government intervention, has had to include so many socially Conservative Evangelical Christians. The thinking, as it goes, is that the God-mandate (for whatever it is) is wholly incompatible with limited government and religious liberty. Yet Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush could never have been elected without the so-called Religious Right. These folks, though were shrewd politicians. They saw that particularly in the South, white Christians had been voting traditionally Democrat.

Nixon's Southern Strategy originally divided white Southerners along racial lines. However, very quickly this division deteriorated and Republicans had to come up with another way to straddle the ideological fence and rope in this essential bloc of voters. At just the right time for the 1980 election, something was happening in Christianity--the Baptist Reformation. Led by the likes of Adrian Rogers and Jerry Falwell, the Southern Baptist Convention was about to become the first major Christian denomination in America to turn back from Liberalism and toward a decidedly Conservative theology. Conveniently, this brand of Conservative Christianity was primarily concerned with what they saw as the destruction of "traditional values," symbolized at the time by Roe v. Wade. As the Gay Rights movement evolved, this too was perceived as an attack on Christian doctrine, and Republican politicians of the era abandoned their traditional agnosticism towards Faith & Politics and jumped on the opportunity to rally Southern Whites to their cause in a post-segregation society.

It worked. The "Values Voter" emerged to support Ronald Reagan who frequently and eloquently invoked the name of God in his speeches and promised to appoint "Strict Constructionist" judges to the nation's Supreme Court, code in the mind of Conservatives for judges who would roll back many of the liberal decisions of the 60s and 70s. Led by Falwell, James Dobson, and others, the Evangelical vote became a core component of the Republican base, and in 1996, Bob Dole's lackluster support of this bloc's issues helped to defeat him by lackluster turnout at the polls in spite of Newt Gingrich's revolutionary seizing of Congress just two years prior.

Record Evangelical turnout propelled George W. Bush and his "compassionate conservatism" to victory in 2000 and 2004 and helped he and Karl Rove break with history in 2002 to be one of few modern Presidents to have their party make gains in Congress in their first mid-term election. Bush appointed social conservatives to many of his top cabinet posts, supported "Faith based initiatives" in his first term, and nominated Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the court, both perceived as traditional strict constructionist judges. Yet the fissure in the Conservative movement has begun to be apparent.

Mike Huckabee, rallying Evangelicals around his populist platform in this year's Republican primaries, eschewed the usual economically conservative rhetoric in favor of a his own brand of compassionate conservatism. The Evangelicals rallied to his cause in a clear indication that their "values" issues were what really mattered to them--not economics. Increasingly, younger evangelicals are finding themselves more closely aligned with the social agenda of Barack Obama than John McCain--if only Obama were pro-life, it would be a match made in heaven. Now, we find increasing support amongst evangelicals for the Environmentalist agenda and the fight against so-called "Global Warming."

The new generation of evangelicals even seems to care less and less about abortion and gay rights and more and more about helping the poor--with tax dollars rather than charitable donations of course. The Reaganesque Rugged Individualism of older evangelicals seems to be in the process of being supplanted by the "It Takes a Village" mentality of the Socialist Left. All in the name of Christ-like compassion, of course.

There is increasing evidence that the Dobson evangelicals are about to break with the Republican Party for lack of progress on abortion and gay marriage, and that younger evangelicals are likely to switch over to the Democrats because of "social justice" issues. This will leave a substantial vacuum in the Republican party, removing an essential element of the coalition that has kept the Republicans more or less in power since 1980.

For those of us who believe that Christian social justice, like morality generally, is to be accomplished through individual choice and not coercion, this Socialistic turn is worrisome. Yet the break-up of the evangelical bloc also means there will be a less than center stage focus on gay marriage and abortion and more on other, less tired issues.

What appears to be happening, though, is that these well-meaning Religious Conservatives are merely being co-opted by both sides of the aisle for their respective agendas and they don't even realize it. They think they are closer to heaven as a result. The legacy of the end of Christian pietism is likely to be negative.

I am reminded of a beautiful quote by C.S. Lewis, one that characterizes many on the Right and Left when it comes to making people moral--whether with their checkbooks or by banning perceived immoral actions...

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

Whether this attitude takes the form of confiscatory taxation or preventing a man from visiting his gay partner in the hospital, it truly does "sting with intolerable insult." Let us hope that these busybodies do not win in November--on either side of the aisle. Sadly, "none of the above," doesn't appear on our ballots.