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To be sure, the same general narrative could be used to describe the civil rights movement: it too became more militant over time. But looking at the rescue movement this way obscures the kind of conscious breaks evangelicals made with the Sixties. The intellectual and sociological links between Sixties social protest and the rescue movement began to weaken precisely when evangelicals took it over.
Congruent with Shires' thesis, however, evangelicals in the rescue movement did often sound like Sixties radicals. When evangelical rescuers talked about "breaking the system," as even Terry did, it was not hard to hear echoes of the New Left. Like many Sixties movements, rescue attempted to push the frontiers of human freedom—indeed, it saw itself as a new civil rights movement. This self-understanding is constantly obscured by academic characterizations of the abortion conflict as a culture war.
If Shires continues his interesting work, I would encourage him to consider the possibility that the New Left in turn was deeply indebted to the larger Protestant culture in which it emerged. The radical egalitarianism and allergy to authority in the early New Left reflected a secular version of traditional evangelical doctrine. One might call it "the priesthood of all participants." Unlike the hierarchical unions of the Old Left, the New Left sought a politics without coercion. Chapters of Students for a Democratic Society, for example, would not even agree to take a break unless there was perfect consensus among members.
Freed from hierarchical organizations that emphasized solidarity, the New Left quickly took on a sectarian character. Not unlike Protestant churches, New Left groups began to splinter as activists sought a purer and more authentic expression of leftist politics. As political scientist Hugh Heclo has emphasized, "the movement" fractured into many movements as young radicals were called to a "plurality of authenticities."
Protestantism, after all, has always thrived in a state of protest. For this reason, evangelicalism has been a critical mainspring of American politics. It birthed the abolitionist, temperance, suffrage, anti-evolution, and civil rights movements. Today's Religious Right must be seen in this context rather than as the bastard child of the counterculture.
Nonetheless I agree that the ideals of the Sixties influenced the Religious Right, though in somewhat different ways than Shires emphasizes. I would argue that the Religious Right embraced New Left ideals at a time when many liberals had forsaken them. The youthful leaders of the New Left fervently hoped that important moral questions would return to the center of American politics. They believed that only moral controversy could revitalize American democracy and inspire alienated citizens. In its more contemplative moments, the New Left sometimes even appreciated the necessity of a well-organized Right to a more ideological and participatory America.
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