Why Evangelicals are Conservatives

Richard Hall has an interesting post on American evangelicals and conservatism. After commenting on how normal it is to be an active Christian in the US, he makes this comment

...there seems to be a strong link between America’s conservatism and its “church-goingness". I understand that GWB got 80% of the white church-going vote in the last election. American Christians routinely make a link between conservatism and faith as anyone who has spent any time reading Christian blogs will realise. If you’re not convinced have a read of the daily “blog-cache” on blogs4God and compare how many of those listed are supportive of the Kerry campaign compared with Bush supporters.

I feel a strong bond of fellowship with the American Christians that I have met or come to know via the internet, and many of them are much (much!) more conservative than me, certainly in the political sense. Is it possible to persuade my brothers and sisters there that Conservative politics and Christian faith are not so intimately bound together as they assume?

Yes, but not likely.

If you go back to the turn of the 20th century, there were plenty of evangelical folks in both political camps. You had status-quoian conservative evangelicals (or what we would call evangelical today; they might not have accepted the term), especially in the south, while there was also plenty of socialist/progressive evangelicals as well. If you look at the pop-culture version of religious history, William Jennings Bryan was the losing champion of conservative thought in the Scopes trial. Yet Bryan was both progressive and a Progressive, championing a loose money supply as the Democratic nominee for President

In 1896, he railed in support of the coinage of free silver and the end of the gold standard: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor a crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." Bryan looked upon the wealthy with great suspicion and warned against the unchecked powers of the trusts. Responding to the plight of striking coal miners in Pennsylvania, Bryan said "Whether a man is a laboring man, a farmer or a merchant, he must see that the opportunities are constantly narrowing under this trust system."

Note the Biblical imagery in that speech; you wouldn't see a Democratic nominee use that kind of religious rhetoric, although I could see Jackson or Sharpton try pulling it off. One of Richard's commenters notes that

...in Britain Christians were active in establishing the Labour movement: it’s no coincidence that local trade union branches are still called “chapels".

There were plenty of Christian socialists in the early part of the 20th century, especially during the Great Depression when a free-market system wasn't working too well.

However, the past quarter century has seen evangelicals move into the conservative camp. In modern American parlance, conservative translates to three basic philosophies, (1) A strong military willing to confront evil where practical, (2) a traditional view of morality and the importance of family, and (3) a faith in the free-market and skepticism of large government programs.

That wasn't always the case. Traditional morality wasn't on the table much before the 1960s, so many evangelicals were free to choose either political party and not have to be in bed with libertines. Also, with a military that was more hegemonic than today prior to WWII, there was more room to be isolationist and for a minimalist military in Christian thought.

After WWII, five things happened that moved evangelicals into the conservative camp. The first was the Cold War. Fighting "godless Communism" gave military policy and an outward-looking policy of containment more cache in Christian circles. This was a bit stronger in evangelical circles than elsewhere; in the Catholic and mainline camps, there was more sympathy for the anti-colonial Marxists than among evangelicals.

The second was the rise of secularism in the political left. The foes of conventional morality became more vocal in the 60s and 70s, egged on by the Warren Court and an increasingly-friendly media and academe. As liberalism became associated with libertine-ism, the friends of traditional morality would up becoming part of the conservative camp. Had the secularists came into influence as libertarians rather than as leftists, you could have seen a populist evangelical fusion (have fun with that alternative universe), but they didn't.

Prior to the 70s, neolibertarians passed themselves off as conservatives, for their moral liberalism wasn't an issue. For instance, there isn't much difference between Barry Goldwater and Glenn Reynolds, yet Goldwater is Mr. Conservative; his stands on gay rights and abortion weren't an issue in 1964. He'd have a fun time getting nominated today, for Mr. Conservative would be too liberal to win the nomination.

The third reason is the distillation of party ideology. Prior to the 1970s, you saw plenty of conservative Democrats, especially in the south, and plenty of liberal Republicans, especially in the north. During the 70s and 80s, you saw liberal Republicans become Democrats and conservative Democrats become Republicans. Today, it's rare to see a Democrat who has a significantly right-of-center ideology (you still have a handful of southern Blue Dogs who have yet to defect) or a Republican to be significantly left-of-center.

This makes theological conservatives Republicans by default, unless other issues overwhelm their choice. Were there more evangelical Democrats and less hostility from the secular camp to their values, that default value wouldn't be there.

The fourth reason is the success of the free-market system in the US; while there are pockets of poverty and the safety net isn't as secure as it could be, the system has worked well for the vast majority of people. If the Cold War made the military plank of conservatism viable to evangelicals, the post-WWII economic success made the free market more attractive. When things are going good, big government intervention doesn't look as appetizing.

The fifth reason was a melding of liberal Christian theology (having a more universalist world-view, downplaying the need for Jesus' death on the cross, and more tolerance of extramarital sex) with economic liberalism. That made economic liberalism less attractive to evangelicals, as they associated big government programs with moral decay. The anecdotal evidence of generations of single welfare mothers begetting another generation of single moms is one that hits a cord. There is a solid evangelical case for a more robust government to aid the needy, but the theological liberalism of many Social Gospel proponents makes their progressive economics look bad.

All five of those factors have helped to bring evangelicals squarely in the conservative camp. There are a few liberal evangelicals, but they generally do so because of racial politics, economics, or pacifist beliefs. For Euro-American evangelicals, there's little to attract them to the liberal side unless they have a severe distrust of the modern political/economic system.

Comments

[Richard Hall]

Thanks for that very thoughtful response Mark. What you say makes sense.
The notion that liberal economics with "moral decay" in the minds of evangelicals has the ring of truth about - many evangelicals seem to operate with a peculiar "theology of taint", and this certainly fits into that sort of theology.
I also think you're right that evangelicals in America have become more conservative politically because it "works" in a sense. They've done well out of it, and it is in their interests for the present system to be continued. Whether that is an attitude rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ is, I think, open to challenge.

[Nathan Mates]

Another comment: socialism was in the "sounds nice" category a hundred years ago. It seemed to solve a lot of problems, be generally fairer, etc. People could support it, even naively, with a clear conscience.

By its fruits, it's a a lot less able to support socialism, and by extension, far-liberalism (bordering on socialism). Socialism has been discredited in practice, so even if it sounds nice, the bodycount outweighs it.

[Mark Byron]

Nathan, the socialism "body count" would largely apply better to totalitarian Marxist states like the old Soviet empire or some of the uglier African regimes; it would be over the top to apply that rhetoric to Western European market socialist states like Sweden.

[Richard Hall]

Nathan - Jesus said a lot of stuff that's in the "sounds nice" category as far as most people are concerned. Not "storing up treasure on earth" for example. But that wasn't a suggestion, it was a commandment. Doing what's expedient, practical or realistic isn't always what Jesus expects of his followers.

Experiments with socialism are not the total failure you suggest. Mark's already mentioned Europe. Dare I mention Cuba, which has managed to produce an enviable public health and education programme despite decades of hostility and economic sanctions from the USA. (I'm not suggesting that Cuba is a runaway success either, just not a complete failure)

On the smaller scale there are the co-operatives and credit unions worldwide which have democratised production, distribution and capital itself. Not all socialism is state sponsored.

[Richard Shuford]

Cuba did quite well while the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was subsidizing it. Nowadays...

But on the general attitude of Christians towards economic schemes, C.S. Lewis had the following to say:

[from Chapter 3 "Social Morality" originally in "Christian Behaviour", now found in the book "Mere Christianity"]

...Christianity has not, and does not profess to have, a detailed political programme for applying "Do as you would be done by" to a particular society at a particular moment. It could not have. It is meant for all men at all times, and the particular programme which suited one place or time would not suit another. And, anyhow, that is not how Christianity works. When it tells you to feed the hungry, it does not give you lessons in cookery....

...All the same, the New Testament, without going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more than we can take.

It tells us that there are to be no passengers or parasites: if a man does not work, he ought not to eat. Everyone is to work with his own hands, and, what is more, everyone's work is to produce something good: there will be no manufacturing of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. And there is to be no swank, ...no putting on airs. To that extent a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist.

On the other hand, it is always insisting on obedience--obedience (and outward marks of respect) from all of us to properly appointed magistrates, from children to parents, and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular) from wives to husbands.

Thirdly, it is to be a cheerful society: full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong. Courtesy is one of the Christian virtues; and the New Testament hates what it calls "busybodies".

If there were such a society in existence, and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, "advanced", but that its family life and its code of manners were rather old-fashioned--perhaps even ceremonious and aristocratic. Each of us would like some bits of it, but I am afraid very few of us would like the whole thing....

...Now another point. There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest, and lending money at interest--what we call investment--is the basis of our whole system.

Now it may not absolutely follow that we are wrong. Some people say that when Moses and Aristotle and the Christians agreed in forbidding interest (or "usury" as they called it), they could not foresee the joint stock company, and were only thinking of the private moneylender, and that, therefore, we need not bother about what they said. That is a question I cannot decide on. I am not an economist and I simply do not know whether the investment system is responsible for the state we in, or not. (This is where we want the Christian economist.) But I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great civilisations had agreed (or so it seems at first sight) in condemning the very thing on which we have based our whole life.

One more point and I am done. In the passage where the New Testament says that everyone must work, it gives as a reason "in order that he may have something to give to those in need." Charity--giving to the poor--is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats, it seems to be the point on which everything turns. Some people nowadays say that charity ought to be unnecessary and that, instead of giving to the poor, we ought to be producing a society in which there were no poor to give to. They may be quite right in saying that we ought to produce that kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality.

...And now, before I end, I am going to venture on a guess as to how this section has affected any who have read it. My guess is that there are some Leftist people among them who are very angry that it has not gone further in that direction, and some people of an opposite sort who are angry because they think it has gone much too far.

If so, that brings us right up against the real snag in all this drawing up of blueprints for a Christian society. Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: we are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party. We are looking for an Ally where we are offered either a Master or--a Judge.

I am just the same. There are bits in this section that I wanted to leave out. And that is why nothing whatever is going to come of such talks unless we go a much longer way round.

A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian. I may repeat, "Do as you you would be done by," until I am blue in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbor as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbor as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward--driven on from social matters to religious matters. For the longest way round is the shortest way home.

[Alan K. Henderson]

Regarding Cuba, what good is a state education program if there's no freedom of thought?

[49erDweetd]

Interesting insights, though a bit circular. But I'm wondering just how we are to become the 'salt' if we are all snugly fitted within a so-called "Christian society"?

Isn't it our role to be a Christian within a "secular society'? Isn't that where we're to reach others for him?

Or am I just missing it?

[Richard Shuford]

For additional consideration of these issues, I suggest some books:

Kingdoms in Conflict by Chuck Colson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310397715/

...and...

Compassionate Conservatism by Marvin Olasky
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201310/

and Dr. Olasky's previous books, notably The Tragedy of American Compassion
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/089526725X/

(see also http://www.olasky.com/)

Since Colson and Olasky are still active players, their thoughts are more tuned to the economic and political situation in the United States of America at the turn of the 21st Century.

(If you wonder whether anybody is paying attention to these books, you may be interested to know that President George W. Bush was observed boarding a helicopter carrying a copy of Compassionate Conservatism under his arm.)

...RSS

[Mike Perry]

To understand the political transformation of evangelicals (and even more so for devout blue-collar Catholics), more stress needs to be placed on abortion than the mere passing reference to Goldwater given above.

While economic issues are typically matters of degree, abortion is inherently either/or. In the womb, we're either smaller and more helpless versions of our post-natal selves (the conservative POV) or mere things with the moral status of hamburger meat (the liberal POV). As a moral issue, it's the equivalent of Auschwitz. None of the 1930s rhetoric about Hitler "putting Germany back to work" can hold a candle to the Holocaust.

Abortion also demolishes liberal claims to look out for "the little guy." That was never really true, as you can see if you look at the zeal that socialists, liberals and progressives displayed for eugenics and forced sterilization. I discuss that at:

Inkling University

Finally, among young church-going women, abortion is an absolute litmus test. Nothing liberals or their media allies can say will convince those women that what they're carrying isn't a baby. It goes to the very heart of who they are. For those women, liberal support for abortion is as odious as liberal hostility to the military is for men. Motherhood is for women what courage in combat is for men.

--Mike Perry, Seattle