The morphing of conservative evangelicalism

First there’s this article on Politico today about Stephen Mansfield’s forthcoming book, The Faith of Barak Obama, a reportedly favorable treatment of the presumptive Democratic candidate for President by an author who wrote a similarily favorable book in 2004 on President George W. Bush.  Add to the Politico piece an earlier article today on USA Today entitled ”Why the Christian Right Fears Obama,” and one gets the distinct impression there are seismic shifts going on in the political perspective of evangelicals.

Maybe it’s just my impression alone (and possibly an inaccurate one), but I took away from the USA Today article that what really worries Christian right leaders about Obama is that he may get significant support from evangelical voters this election, and what this would mean not to the nation, but to conservative Christian politics.  At worst, this means not simply Obama’s election, but that the power block that some self-appointed Christian right leaders have sought to control and speak for over the past two decades is slipping away from them.  The horror!

We’ve seen signs of weakening within the conservative Christian voting block.  First, despite all the rhetoric about how evangelical Christians make up “the base” of the Republican Party, the candidate who emerged from the crowded field earlier this year is no one’s idea of a champion of religious conservative causes.  In fact, the one candidate who made the most direct appeal to conservative Christians — Mike Huckabee — fell far short the nomination, and except for the early win in Iowa’s caucus, was never seriously considered the frontrunner at any point in the primary season. 

Second, the political/social issues that have been identified with conservative Christians have proven to be both too narrow and too intractable to maintain solidarity.  Take the abortion issue.  Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, which legalized abortion-on-demand/abortion-for-convenience, abortion policy in this nation has remained largely unassailed over the past 35 years.  During those 35 years there has been 20 years to pro-life presidencies (Reagan’s, Geo. H.W. Bush’s, and Geo. W. Bush’s), 12 years of GOP control of the House of Representatives, and 16 years of Republican control of the U.S. Senate.  Without a doubt, the passage of a federal ban on partial birth abortion was a significant pro-life victory in Congress, but it’s the only substantial political pro-life victory over the past 35 years.  When one looks at this situation honestly, one must (I would argue) conclude that the solutions to ever-present social problems in America are not political solutions. 

As recently as this spring, I was still maintaining that the election of a conservative president was important for no other reason than to continue to shape the philosophy of the federal judiciary.  But then came the California Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision to give legal sanction to homosexual marriage.  Three of the justices who voted for the decision were appointed by Republican governors, so the idea that Republican-appointed justices can hold back social changes reflective of an ever-increasing post-Christian consensus in society is a vain hope.

Thirdly, an increasing number of evangelical Christians have voiced dissatisfaction equating abortion, gays, and guns as the sum total of Christian social concern.  Many are expressing the need to address issues of poverty, health care needs, stewardship of the environment, humanitarian efforts in Africa and Asia, opposition to war, to name a few, as consistent with their concern as Christians.  Not abandoning convictions over abortion and other social issues that have characterized conservative Christian priorities over the past two-plus decades, many evangelicals are nevertheless concluding that faith can inform a broad scope of issues, and that the old formula that worked in the 1980s through the early years of the 21st Century is insufficient.

Taken together — the failure of social conservatism to overturn the abortion decision, even when that viewpoint (supposedly) held sway in Congress and in the Oval Office; evidence that Republican-appointed justices are no guarantee of maintaining traditional values; the sense that Christian convictions are broader than the issues that have dominated over the past generation; add to this the sense that Christian convictions have been taken captive by self-appointed Christian right “leaders” who have a partisan agenda, and who seem to enjoy the trappings and reputation of power that they have built for themselves, and that a new generation of evangelicals has come of age and are to some degree in revolt over those who would dictate what they are suppose to think– taking all of this into consideration, it isn’t surprising that Sen. Obama is at least being looked at seriously by evangelical voters.  All of this, plus the sense that Sen. Obama is the first Democrat candidate for President in a generation who doesn’t view Christians as “the enemy,” and who respects a faith-informed perspective on politics and the problems that face the nation, means that he’s not viewed as “the enemy” either by a significant number of evangelical Christians.

Regardless of all of this, the truly revolutionary thing in 2008 isn’t for evangelicals to jump the fence and consider voting for a reasonable liberal, but to look at the futility of politics in general, and to apply the walk of faith to addressing human needs outside the realm of politics.  Politics, like the poor and rumors of war, will always be with us, but the growing challenge is to consider that politics is not the end-all/be-all, and wasn’t even within Jesus’ consideration when addressing the needs and pain of a failing world. 

The challenges we face are not political challenges requiring political solutions.  The partisan gridlock in Washington should convince us that no political solutions are possible.  Most of the issues we face in our society are spiritual in nature.  Conservative Christians have failed over the past generation to reverse the trends in an increasingly secular society precisely because they have tried to respond to these trends through politics.  It’s well past time for Bible-believing, Christ-devoted believers to consider what spiritual resources they have in Christ, and begin applying those resources to the challenges in our society.