America sweated for 37 days while the political world focused on
Florida. George W. Bush came to office by the narrowest of margins. It
wasn’t supposed to be that way. Karl Rove counted on 2 more million
Evangelical Christians coming out than actually did.
Beginning with Bob Dole’s uninspiring campaign and the release of the
first Left Behind novel in 1996, Evangelical Christians have
increasingly withdrawn from the political sphere. In this series of
columns, we’ll address this huge social issue in some depth, because
the future of this nation will ride on whether this trend continues or
abates.
1) The Left Behind Phenomena:
Conservative Christian Political power peaked in 1994. I believe that
the largest factor in the subsequent decline is the Jerry Jenkins/Tim
LaHaye series along with other End Times novels such as Pat Robertson’s
1996 novel “End of the Age.”
I don’t believe LaHaye and Jenkins, and certainly not Robertson are
trying to stop Christians from voting. I think they’re oblivious to the
effects of their work. Robertson’s work predicted a “2000: The
Tribulation Begins Scenario”. The Left Behind Series tells us that
Christ’s return is eminent and going to happen any moment. Now, an
honest question must be asked. Why vote in 1996 or 1998 if we’re on our
way to the Great Tribulation in Y2K?
The Left Behind series promotes a dangerous eschatology for Christians:
Jesus is coming back soon and will take you out of this evil world. The
impetus to change the world around us, to actively care about our
communities, and to stand up for what’s right has grown dim. Why
bother? Jesus is coming back any second. Things are getting worse and
worse so that He can take you away from it all. Thus, Christianity has
been injected with a dose of fatalism.
Leaving aside the scriptural arguments on the rapture, the behavior of
end times dropouts have to be viewed negatively in light of scripture.
Matthew 25:13 tells us that we don’t know the day or hour of Christ’s
return. In Matthew 24:44, Christ tells the disciples, “for in such an
hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.” Now this would seem to
exclude a time when there are more end times movies, end times novels,
and end times sermons than you can shake a stick at. Also, I would
direct them to verse 47 where Christ tells us that the “blessed
servant” is the one who his Lord finds doing what he was called to do.
This means that the function of the church and the role of Christians
in society should not change even if one thinks Christ’s return could
be soon. If Christians should have been voting in 1992, they should be
voting today.
2) The Ralph Reed factor
One of the most powerful figures in Washington, DC in the mid-90s was
Christian Coalition Executive Director Ralph Reed who played a large
role in the Republican takeover in 1994. In 1997, he stood at the
pinnacle of power and resigned. Following his resignation, the
Christian Coalition fell apart, and has since fallen from its status as
one of America’s great political powers.
The truth about the Ralph Reed regime has rarely been discussed and I
think it must be. Mr. Reed’s job was to tame the shrew. You had
millions of Christian, Conservative blue collar political activists who
cared actively about great issues who in the minds of many leaders
needed to be changed into party-line Republicans. Reed’s dedication to
Republican causes first was shown when he tried to make the Christian
Coalition lobby for the passage of NAFTA.
Reed used his role to become a Washington power broker, and a force to
be reckoned with in Republican Party politics. He neutered the
religious right quite nicely, so that President George W. Bush had a
homosexual speak at the 2000 Republican Convention, while excluding any
religious conservative voices and there was little controversy.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) in a Nick News story on the religious right
said that Ralph Reed had come to him during the 1996 primaries after
Specter had dropped out and offered to work together to make Bob Dole
the Republican nominee. This was despite the fact that Dole was perhaps
the least Conservative candidate in the race and as everyone learned
was a disastrous general election candidate.
Reed’s power came at a price. First, many activists who opened to
change American politics were desperately disappointed by a leader who
sought only to become part of the status quo and in his personal
pursuit of power showed little care for the issues that mattered most
to them.
Reed’s Christian Coalition also had a nasty habit of deceiving
Christian voters. The Christian Coalition used variable questions on
their voter guide. When a pro-life Republican was running, they’d ask
the candidates positions on banning abortion. Often, if a pro-abortion
Republican was running, they’d leave the ban on abortion off and
include a question about something like public funding of abortion in
order to make the Republican look pro-life.
Ralph Reed succeeded at making himself a power broker but failed
miserably at promoting Christian Conservative goals, and stands as a
great reason for the narrow Bush victory in 2000.
3) Republican Leadership
No discussion of the decline of
Christian political activism would be complete without examining the
treatment of Christian Conservatives by Republicans.
The situation between traditional Republicans and the new Religious
Right has been tense for years. Many fallaciously believe that letting
a Religious Conservative within one mile of the convention podium
guarantees certain defeat after the 1992 Republican Convention when Pat
Robertson and Pat Buchanan got prime time spots. This has been the big
excuse from barring them from the podium ever since.
The War on Terror has become the latest excuse for ignoring
Conservative Christians.
I happened to catch Sean Hannity say regarding the concerns of
Religious Conservatives who were upset that no major pro-life leader
was scheduled to speak at the convention, “Let’s make sure that this
country is defended and then you can get back to your intramural stuff
later on.”
Anytime someone wants to talk about pro-life or socially Conservative
issues for the next fifty years, the war on terror will be the excuse,
until they come up with something else. The other favorite is, “Look,
we can’t let John Kerry win the election.” Of course, the problem with
that is there’s never going to be a Democratic nominee of whom they’ll
say, “It wouldn’t be such a big deal if he won, so lets go ahead and
stand up for principle.” A thinking Christian Conservative when he asks
the question, “When will our issues be taken seriously?” is basically
given the answer two weeks from never.
The Republicans’ greatest blunder has been to assume that the religious
right is their answers to the Democrats monopoly over the Black
community. This philosophy means that you can trash and ignore the
religious right’s candidates for political office, give lip service to
their issues with no intention of acting on them, and expect them to be
your foot soldiers
The problem with religious conservatives in the political sphere is
that while they won’t go to the Democrats, they can certainly stay away
from the polls and are more than happy to. Politicians forget that if
Christians aren’t happy, they won’t hesitate to leave. Consider the
fact that the number of denominations in the United States grows
steadily each year. The reason for this is that churches split over a
point of doctrine (generally minor). If people will change their church
with the same thought they give to changing their shoes, what makes
politicians believe they won’t leave their political party or at the
very least disengage from the political process.
4) Lack of Endurance:
The big issue that lies within the Christian Community is this. Around
25 years after Roe v. Wade, Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson wrote a book
called, “Blinded by Might” urging Christians to withdraw from the
political sphere. Their main argument is that Political Activism “isn’t
working.”
The idea that victory will be quick is absurd. The fight for Civil
Rights took 100 years, it took more than 50 years for Planned
Parenthood to build support for legalized child-killing. It has taken
more than 40 years of constant activism for homosexuals to get where
they are today and they still haven’t achieved their goal.
Sadly, endurance and the willingness to fight on against all odds is
lacking in most Christians, who prefer ease and comfort to standing up
for the right thing.
5) Leadership
The leadership of the Christian Conservative movement has two different
characteristics. First, there are those who are merely trying to gain
power within the GOP (ala Ralph Reed). Second, there’s a group who are
committed to the cause but believe that major goals will never be
achieved.
The first style has a disastrous effect and the second is not helpful
as the idea, “We’re never, ever going to win” isn’t going to inspire
anyone, as it is merely going to encourage the thought that political
activism is futile. Why waste time building a political empire that
will only aggrandize the leaders of it?
With such visionary duds, no wonder religious conservatives are staying
away in droves. There are some leaders who believe Christian
Conservatives can win, but lack political skills and money to actually
pull off any great plan, thus they are mirror images of the most
prominent leaders who have the money and skills but no vision.
6) Pastoral Confusion
Pastors were concerned in the early ’90s about Christians being overly
involved in the political sphere. There may have been good cause with
some Christians in the early ‘90s. However, the trend is reversing,
Christians are dropping out of the political process, and even skipping
voting in many cases and what are pastors talking about?
They’re preaching the same thing, warning about how political the
church has become while the church has steadily retreated. In the
Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis warned that the devil manipulates
churches to focus on the opposite problem to which their actually
having. So, thus while Christians are sitting back for the rapture,
pastors find their focus drawn to the dangers of activism.
Conclusion
Thankfully, the Left Behind series is slowly coming to an end even
though the authors appear reluctant to kill their cash cow, as they
plan an animated version of the first movie and a TV series, as well as
several spin-off book series.
The first step to the “Left Behind” problem is to acknowledge that
there is a problem. While we should be personally prepared for the
coming of Christ, we must not live as if we have no future. Bold
pastoral leadership is required to get the church back on track and
away from fatalism.
Also the Christian Conservative movement requires leadership that is
looking out for the best interests of the movement, not their own
interests. While building coalitions is important, the movement must
regain its fire and its focus. By blunting the Christian Conservative
message, Ralph Reed killed its fire and its reason for being in
politics.
It will also require a non-partisan morality that doesn’t condemn Bill
Clinton’s infidelity while winking at Newt Gingrich’s, and that doesn’t
attack Whoopi Goldberg and John Kerry’s profanity while winking at Dick
Cheney’s.
It must also be a non-partisan mentality that cares more about the
growth of the movement and the interest of the Country more than the
success of the political party. What does this mean? This means, simply
put that if the party nominates a National ticket that doesn’t support
its values, the movement will walk and decide to make the Constitution
Party a national party. It means not just supporting every candidate
who has an (R) by their name, but opposing select Pro-abortionists.
Christian Conservative groups backing extreme pro-abortionists (like
Christie Todd Whitman) has greatly hurt the credibility of the movement
and active support must be totally cut-off or it’ll continue to drive
pro-life Conservatives away from politics.
They’ll also have to decide this is a battle for the long-haul and
commit to a long, hard political road that may take generations. The
culture has been deteriorating for at least 80 years and it’ll take a
long time to get it back on track, but leadership must believe that it
will come back and that in the end we’ll be victorious. Defeatist
fatalism remains the greatest enemy.