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He said that when he was president of World Vision, senators often came to the organization for information on foreign issues.

"When it came to work being done outside the United States, the very best information was coming from those best integrated in the grassroots of the country—not from people watching C-SPAN inside the beltway," Seiple says.

Evolving strategies
Richard Cizik, vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), agrees that an evangelical interest in world affairs is not new. "But the folks at The New York Times are not dumb either," he says. "What is news is our capacity to shape public policy. That makes this a story. Absent our ability to transform our concerns into actual policy, I don't think the media nor the policy people in Washington would be as interested in what we are doing."

Cizik said that there has been a gradual evolution in evangelicals' activity and influence in foreign affairs since the 1980s that has led to more influence in public policy. Defining moments in this growth, he said, were NAE's co-sponsoring of a push for religion to be included in the annual State Department human rights report in 1984 and the 1996 "Statement of Conscience" against religious persecution. By 1998, evangelicals had convinced Congress to pass—and Clinton to sign—the International Freedom of Religion Act.

"If people's reaction to this [article] is simply, 'Well, we have been doing this all along,' they missed the point," Cizik told CT. "No, we have not been doing what we started in 1996 all along. We are not new internationalists to the missions cause, we are not new internationalists to the humanitarian cause, but we are the new internationalists in our capacity to affect congressional legislation."

Changes in evangelicals' political capacity also came with changes in their political tactics, says the Bliss Institute's Green This shift perhaps explains why Kristof says that the battles of the "old religious right" against concerns such as abortion and school prayer are no longer fought.

"He is mistaken if he thinks evangelicals aren't still trying to battle Satan," Green says. "Evangelicals and prolife Christians are working just as hard on the abortion issues and gay-rights issue as they have. So I think there is a misunderstanding of what is happening here. Having said that, I think [Kristof] is on to something, but he doesn't quite grasp it. There has been a change."

Green says evangelical activists have learned to become more pragmatic. For instance, activists now work to limit late-term abortions instead of fighting for a right-to-life amendment.

"People are saying, 'What can I accomplish?' instead of 'How do I proclaim my values?'" Green told Christianity Today. "They are realizing that to get things done, you have to form coalitions and work on achievable ends."

This maturation of pragmatism, he says, may be why Kristof writes that old ways are "on the ropes." Such pragmatic efforts generate fewer headlines, Green says. Without the media attention, it may seem as if evangelical activism has faded.

The situation may be the reverse in foreign affairs. While evangelicals have long worked in foreign countries and have been internationally minded, their recent pragmatic approach has garnered successes like the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. "What Kristof sees as a new interest in foreign policy is really a more pragmatic and effective interest in foreign policy," Green says.

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May (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46