From nonplayers to radicals to New Right conservatives: The saga of evangelicals and social action.
“Heave an egg out a Pullman window,” H. L. Mencken wrote in 1924, “and you will hit a Fundamentalist almost anywhere in the United States today.” To the bewilderment of many, this is still true. And if Mencken were living today, he might put a different spin on it: “Heave an egg out a window anywhere on Capitol Hill today and you will likely hit an evangelical political activist.” There was a time when political involvement by evangelicals was seen as worldly, or even sinful, activity. Now political celibacy is more likely to be considered a dereliction of Christian responsibility.
An Uneasy Conscience
For over 40 years in the middle of this century, conservative evangelical social thought was primarily influenced by dispensationalism and pietistic individualism; these points of view tended to look with disdain on efforts to improve social conditions and political structures. Change had begun to occur in 1947 when Carl Henry wrote The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. It was a clarion call for evangelicals to confront the modern world with a Christian apologetic that was intellectually respectable and socially responsible. According to Henry, the theological separatism of fundamentalism had led to a separation from cultural and social responsibilities, and to a mistaken disengagement from the important issues of the day.
Making connections between faith and politics was quite novel and, at the time, controversial. Evangelical leaders like Henry, E. J. Carnell, and Harold Ockenga had their persistent critics among separatist fundamentalists on their right. But critics began to form on their left as well.
The many issues and questions raised by the political activism and social turbulence of the 1960s caused some evangelicals to reexamine their cozy link to the “establishment.” The founding of the magazines The Other Side in 1965 and Post American in 1971 (renamed Sojourners in 1974) created forums for an ongoing critique of what the editors saw as a “truncated gospel” that neglected the abundance of biblical passages exhorting believers to seek justice for the oppressed and care for the poor. Their early impact was significant, as these magazines further pricked evangelicals’ “uneasy conscience” on issues such as racism, sexism, and poverty. And their writers and editors played a vital role in the drafting of a landmark statement in 1973.
“Some day,” wrote the religion editor of the Chicago Sun-Times in December 1973, “American church historians may write that the most significant church-related event of 1973 took place last week at the YMCA Hotel on South Wabash.” It was there that some 50 evangelical leaders gathered for a two-day workshop that culminated in what became known as the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern. This significant statement on evangelical social responsibility was drafted and signed by evangelicals as diverse as Carl Henry, Frank Gaebelein, Vernon Grounds, and younger self-styled “radical evangelicals” such as Ronald Sider (who had convened the meeting) and Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners.
“We affirm,” the statement said, “that God lays total claim upon the lives of his people. We cannot, therefore, separate our lives in Christ from the situation in which God has placed us in the United States and the world.” The statement emphasized that God requires his people to be loving, just, and abounding in mercy, but “we have not demonstrated the love of God to those suffering social abuses” and “have not proclaimed or demonstrated his justice to an unjust American society.” The declaration acknowledged the need for repentance from the racism, sexism, materialism, and militarism that afflicted the attitudes of the church and the nation.
The Chicago Declaration set the tone and themes for much that was to be written about evangelical social concern. It (along with the important publication in 1977 of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, by Ronald Sider) put on the table for vigorous discussion the need for evangelicals to take just as seriously the admonitions in the Books of Amos and Jeremiah as they do concerns for fulfilling the Great Commission. It also sparked a lively debate between different Christian traditions, most notably between Anabaptist ethicists calling for confrontation with the world and Reformed political philosophers calling for the world to be transformed. And it helped to counter the growth of the “health and wealth” gospel preached by many televangelists by calling Christians to simpler lifestyles, wiser stewardship, and compassion for the victims of poverty, racism, and other forms of injustice.
This new interest in finding the proper balance between evangelism and social responsibility had effects in the larger worldwide evangelical movement as well. The International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland (July 1974), produced the significant document called the Lausanne Covenant. The drafting of Section 5 on “Christian Social Responsibility” sparked vigorous discussion among the leaders at the Congress. The debate was not settled until the early morning hours, but the final version affirmed that “although reconciliation with man is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty.”
Awakening The Right
But the biggest growth of evangelical political activity did not come as a result of statements drawn up at international congresses or declarations from Chicago. Edward Dobson, a former special assistant to Jerry Falwell, has said that Falwell realized how much potential there was to influence the political process in 1976 when, on his national television program, Falwell criticized Jimmy Carter for giving an interview to Playboy magazine. Much to his surprise, Falwell soon received a call from Carter’s special assistant, Jody Powell, asking that he refrain from making such comments. “Back off,” Powell said to him. Falwell (who called himself both a fundamentalist and an evangelical) was startled to find that what he said had caused such concern. He came to perceive this incident as his “initial baptism” into the world of politics.
The original priority of the evangelical Right was not so much to persuade others of their views as it was to sensitize other evangelicals, fundamentalists, and charismatics to become involved in public issues that concerned them. It was not an easy task, since many had been taught for decades that such activity was irrelevant.
For numerous reasons, these evangelical leaders began to feel, as sociologist Steve Bruce says in The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right (Oxford), that they “were not getting their due,” but could “if they organized to claim it.” And organize they did. Their effective use of television and direct mail, the declining membership of liberal denominations, and the increasing membership of evangelical churches gave them confidence. Political involvement now appeared to be a promising and worthwhile endeavor.
What stirred them most was a sense that various Supreme Court decisions were giving increasing power to the opponents of traditional Christian values. They became engaged in what Harvard professor Nathan Glazer has called a “defensive offensive” against what they saw as an aggressive imposition of secular views on American society. Carl Henry later described this emergence of the evangelical Right as the “hijacking of the evangelical jumbo jet while establishment leaders [of evangelicalism] hesitated to forgo an aggressive public program.”
In due course these leaders of the new evangelical Right themselves began to be accused of “imposing their views” and “forcing their beliefs” on the community. But was this really the case? Nathan Glazer again:
Abortion was not a national issue until the Supreme Court, in 1973, set national standards for state laws. It did not become an issue because evangelicals and fundamentalists wanted to strengthen prohibitions against abortion, but because liberals wanted to abolish them.… Pornography in the 1980’s did not become an issue because evangelicals and fundamentalists wanted to ban D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, or even Henry Miller, but because in the 1960s and 1970s under-the-table pornography moved to the top of the newsstands. Prayer in the schools did not become an issue because evangelicals and fundamentalists wanted to introduce new prayers or sectarian prayers—but because the Supreme Court ruled against all prayers. Freedom for religious schools became an issue not because of any legal effort to expand their scope—but because the IRS and various state authorities tried to impose restrictions on them that private schools had not faced before.
This effort to impose a liberal ethos by what many social scientists have called the “new class elites” (made up of newspaper journalists, television producers and commentators, and the “knowledge class” from the universities) is what aroused many previously apolitical and socially indifferent evangelicals to action. While many evangelicals have always found plenty to complain about in the wider culture, the rapid changes in American society during the sixties and seventies sent shock waves through their community. Sociologist Steve Bruce has pointed out that “conservative Protestants of the 1950s were offended by girls smoking in public. In the late 1960s girls were to be seen on news film dancing naked at open-air rock concerts.” In short, the era of Eisenhower’s America was far different than the America of the 1960s and 1970s.
As a result, millions of evangelicals have come to feel that they live in a hostile environment that is suffering from a moral and cultural nervous breakdown. “Enough is enough” is their cry. They no longer need convincing that the Scriptures have much to say about the proper relationship of private belief and public concern. This mood was best reflected by Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, who said recently, “Our time of withdrawal is over. We’ve joined the battle, and are prepared to make serious sacrifices before it’s too late. This is a winner-take-all battle for the very soul of the country.”
In assessing their impact, it must be recounted that in 1980, 27 congressional liberals were targeted for defeat by the New Christian Right, and 23 were defeated (including George McGovern, Frank Church, and Birch Bayh)—though, it should be admitted, this was probably the high point of their influence.
Religious conservatives were most effective in “preparing the ground” for conservative candidates; they registered voters and spent money on general “sensitizing campaigns.” According to television-network exit polls and surveys by the University of Michigan’s Center for Political Studies, at least 80 percent of evangelicals backed President Reagan’s re-election in 1984, and in 1988, 79 percent of evangelicals supported President Bush.
In 1991, Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition vowed it would help to register millions of new voters for the 1992 elections. At the end of 1991, the coalition had 82,000 members involved in 200 local chapters in 43 state organizations. Recently, Jerry Falwell, in describing the influence of religious conservatives over the last decade, said, “We had a great first inning”—meaning, of course, there is much more to come.
A Question Of Means
Clearly, not all evangelicals are happy with these developments. Ron Sider has recently remarked that “we called for social and political action but instead we got eight years of Ronald Reagan.” Assessing the impact of the radical evangelicals is complex. Despite their success in awakening the evangelical social conscience in the early stages, their magazines are now more influential among left-wing Catholics and liberal Protestants (with the latter’s membership declining rapidly). Once thought to be the wave of future evangelical social thought, radical magazines’ popular support has diminished significantly. While they still make some important contributions to public dialogue, their marginalization has caused them to become, according to political scientist Robert Booth Fowler, an “opposition without teeth.”
It is strange that twentieth-century evangelical Christians would have ever needed to be convinced that they should be concerned about social problems. Many of their spiritual forebears always were. Their compassion and fervor animated the campaigns against the slave trade and child labor in England, and, one could argue, was the basis of most reform initiatives of the early nineteenth century. The claim that the faith of American Christians should always be an intensely private affair between the individual and God would have been news to such diverse persons as the Pilgrims, from John Winthrop to Jonathan Edwards, Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionists of slavery, 15 generations of the black church, civil-rights leaders, and antiwar activists.
Evangelicals of every perspective no longer need convincing that political and social concern is an important part of Christian discipleship. It is a settled issue that “the least of these” among us should be treated with both charity and justice. The debates now revolve around prudential questions regarding which policies are in fact the most effective in meeting the normative standards of justice. Many times these are empirical questions that need honest exploration.
Despite the demise of the Moral Majority, despite the disappointments for those who supported the Pat Robertson campaign for President, despite the waning influence of radical evangelicals, and despite disillusionment with aspects of the Reagan and Bush presidencies (whether the critique is from the Left or the Right), many evangelicals are as resolute as ever. The problems of the modern world will not soon disappear; in fact, it is the existence of those very problems that will keep evangelicals engaged in the social, political, and cultural arenas. And for the love of Christ and the duties of charity entailed by following him, they will continue to be engaged, not only with the world, but, because of their own diversity, with each other.
