Chapter 1

The Christian Right in Context

Onward Christian Soldiers?

The Religious Right in American Politics

Introduction

In the wake of Christian Right activism there has been a

growing unease over the mixing of religion and politics.

A national survey in 2008 revealed that the majority of

Americans (52 percent) believe that churches and religious

institutions should “keep out” of politics.

What is the Christian Right?

The Christian Right is a social movement that attempts to

mobilize evangelical Protestants and other orthodox

Christians into conservative political action.

The movement is concentrated primarily among white

evangelical Christians, and especially among the

fundamentalist and pentecostal wings of evangelicalism.

As a Social Movement

Like all social movements, the Christian Right is composed of

social movement organizations, leaders, activists, and

members, and it seeks to attract support from a broad

potential constituency.

Objections within the Christian Right

Many leaders of the movement object to the term “Christian

Right” which they believe depicts a narrow movement.

Others object to the term on the grounds that labeling the

movement as part of the “Right” implies that it is outside the

political mainstream.

Many liberals believe that Christian Right policies would

harm families.

Organizations of the Christian Right

Focus on Family

The Family Research Council

Concerned Women for America

The Christian Coalition

Social conservatives of other faiths

Social conservatives of other races

The Christian Right as a Movement

Social movements are decentralized, differentiated, and

sometimes disorganized.

The Christian Right has no single agenda, but rather a

collection of overlapping agendas.

No one organization or spokesperson represents the

movement because of the different goals and activities of its

members.

Institutionalization

As has been the case with other social movements, some

elements of the Christian Right have become

institutionalized.

Part of the institutionalization process involves training

leaders, and even members, in the rules and norms of

political action.

In general, organizational leaders have sought to distance the

group from activists who make extremist statements in public.

The GOP

Whereas some movement activists have worked to

institutionalize interest groups of the Christian Right, others

have been involved primarily within the Republican Party

and now constitute a major faction of the GOP.

Although movement leaders will sometimes insist for tax

purposes that theirs is a nonpartisan movement, it is clear

that the Christian Right is active almost exclusively in the

GOP.

As a Party Faction

As a party faction, the Christian Right contends with

moderates for control of nominations; control in turn leads

to access to campaign resources and the party platform.

However the Christian Right refuses to be taken for granted

and uses its leverage as an established voting bloc to move the

party’s platform to the right on social policy.

The Controversy Is the Christian Right good or bad for America???

The Christian Right is controversial for several reasons:

Its central social agenda includes issues that are among the most heated in American politics.

Agenda issues of abortion, gay rights, and education fuel great enthusiasm.

Some citizens object to the general effort to mobilize conservative Christians into political action.

The heated rhetoric of the movement’s leaders.

Fundraising Christian Right activists argue, quite correctly, that all

organizations that raise money through direct mail seek to demonize their political opponents.

Liberal groups make fund-raising appeals that caricature Christian conservatives.

Christian Right rhetorical appeals may be no more extreme than those of their political opponents, but they make many citizens uneasy.

Christian Right Beliefs

Supporters of the Christian Right believe it is an attempt to

restore Judeo-Christian values to a country that is in deep

moral decline.

Supporters seek to write laws that embody those values.

Christian conservatives want stronger families, safety from

crime, successful schools, and democracy.

Opposition

Critics of the movement charge that the Christian Right is an

intolerant movement seeking to impose a narrow, sectarian

morality on America.

Many Americans fear the Christian Right because they see

some movement activists issuing harsh condemnations of

Americans whose lifestyles differ from those espoused by

conservative Christians.

The First Amendment and Church and

State

The debate about the role of the Christian Right in America

takes place within a larger debate about the role of religion in

American politics.

At stake are two competing visions for American democracy:

One holds that the United States is a Christian nation specially

blessed by God.

The other maintains that the country should be officially secular,

with a strong separation between church and state.

The First Amendment

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The Establishment Clause

The Free Exercise Clause

Positions Taken on the Clauses

Accomodationists believe that the Constitution merely

prohibits the establishment of a national religion.

Separationists emphasize the potential of religion to lead to

violent conflict.

Conservatives frequently portray separationists as hostile to

religion.

Free Exercise Clause

There are two basic positions on the free exercise clause.

One would allow all kinds of religious activities so long as no

one is harmed.

The other would limit such activities to those within some

broadly defined community consensus.

Christian Preferentialists

Christian Preferentialists want a public role for Christian

symbols and practices, but resist the notion of non-Christian

groups having equal access to public support.

Religious nonpreferentialism holds that all religious groups

have a place in the public square.

Religion and Politics in America

America is remarkable for both its religious diversity and the

strength of it religious institutions.

America is a religiously diverse country in which religious

belief and practice are unusually common.

Underlying the diversity of American religion is a more

general support for its basic civil religion.

Civil Religion Many Christian Right activists believe that the president has a

unique role to play as moral as well as political leader of the

nation.

Civil religion provides an undercurrent of unity beneath the

choppy waters of religious diversity.

Although most Americans expect their political leaders to express

religious sentiments, the public is more deeply divided about

whether preachers and churches should be involved in politics.

A Culture War?

Many Christian Right activists and some social scientists see

America engaged in a culture war between highly religious

citizens and secular citizens.

Yet the idea of a culture war oversimplifies the dimensions of

conflict over social and moral issues.