Lost Momentum

Just before the 1980 elections, the Religious Right burst onto the American political scene. The momentum of Ronald Reagan’s victory, and his endorsement of this conservative effort of fundamentalists, Catholics, and Mormons, carried the movement forward. Some were appointed to government offices; others began concentrating on grassroots activism and voter-registration drives.

In 1986, however, the Religious Right slowed perceptibly. Largely identified with the Republican party, its leaders watched in dismay as Democrats regained majority status in the U.S. Senate. And the present disarray among television evangelists—some of whom lead Religious Right movements—as well as the Iran/contra controversy, appears to have stopped conservatives dead in their tracks.

As the nation begins selecting candidates for 1988, what role will the Religious Right and its secular counterpart, the New Right, play? Washington editor Beth Spring asked noted theologian, author, and educator Carl F. H. Henry to consider the future of the Religious Right. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY for its first 12years, lectures worldwide. He has written over 40 books, including the six-volume God, Revelation and Authority.

The momentum of the New Right appears to have slowed considerably, following its success and visibility from 1980 to 1986. What are the primary reasons for this?

The New Right emerged with an intellectual vigor, literary skill, and cultural excitement that had been lost by the Left. Today it has articulate think tanks and publications, affirms Judeo-Christian values, criticizes ecumenical funding of revolutionary causes, and is alert to religious-liberty concerns. Its leaders are at home in political debate; and they produce competent essays read by the “movers and shakers” in American society. They champion freedom, consider Marxist bureaucracy unbenevolent, oppose Marxist-Leninist expansionism, and espouse limited government and the free market system.

Diminished visibility is due in part to the fact that the New Right is no longer a media curiosity. In addition, its reputation has suffered because of the more sensational features of the Religious Right—not to be confused with the New Right—with its limelight propensities.

What sets the Religious Right apart from the New Right?

Although the Religious Right shares many New Right commitments, it lacks cognitive force to counter the dominant liberal ideology, and it relies more on aggressive political activism and public confrontation to achieve its objectives. The neoconservative Right emphasizes democratic dialogue and sets its sights on political philosophy, whereas the Religious Right is more prone to invoke biblical sanction for its public positions, has a more detailed public agenda, and ventures into direct lobbying on pending legislation.

What are the Religious Right’s main strengths and weaknesses?

To its credit, the Religious Right manifests a socially concerned faith, a regard for the rule of law in society, and a determination not to let secular humanism restructure American culture to the disadvantage of Judeo-Christian values. At the same time, none of the Religious Right’s numerous aggressive leaders speaks for the whole phenomenon or holds together its divergent interests. And it has suffered some credibility loss because of exaggerated constituency claims.

Further, some of the Religious Right’s leaders suffer from colossal self-esteem. Some extremists, like their counterparts on the Left, seem always primed for a fight; confrontation rather than conversation is their middle name. They seem happy only if they harbor a grievance. Some seem at times more party-aligned than issue-oriented, and more issue-oriented than policy-oriented. Worse yet is the occasional lapse into the battle cry, “We’ve got the votes and we can take over.” This elevates political power above the redemptive gospel as the main means of changing society.

How do you distinguish the evangelical movement from the Religious Right?

In several ways. The Religious Right can include not only orthodox Christians, but Jews and Mormons, as did the Moral Majority. If we consider the National Association of Evangelicals normative for the movement, the NAE has been far less preoccupied with political specifics conducive to fund raising than with long-term concerns that affect the fortunes of the churches. The NAE does not do extensive lobbying, and is less one-sidedly identified with the Republican party. But quite apart from NAE there is in the evangelical community a growing resentment of major movements that rally believers to a specific political program, that pressure Christians to line up for or against a particular political agenda as a test of orthodoxy, that oblige them to choose for or against particular candidates for office as a matter of religious preference. This exasperation is increasingly evident now, because some leaders have committed their movements to specific presidential candidates. They gain media visibility by doing this, but they preempt the voluntary expression of their constituencies.

How has the Religious Right affected the old fundamentalist doctrine of separation? As coalitions become broader and political engagement becomes more sophisticated, do you expect Christians to continue collaborating with groups such as Mormons and Unificationists?

A failure to make proper distinctions results in all kinds of reactionary responses. There is no biblical reason why, in a pluralistic society, a fundamentalist Christian—even one devoted to second-degree separation in ecclesiastical relationships—may not in good conscience unite with citizens of other faiths in promoting good laws and decency in the public arena, and in condemning injustice. The Christian’s activity in the public sphere should not be considered an alternative to evangelism and missions. God wills some ends through civil government and legislation, and some ends through the church and proclamation. Neither realm should be neglected. Christianity proclaims the God of justice and of justification. But a church that aspires to government power to change society soon loses spiritual and moral power, even as Christians who opt out of their public duty soon lose civic integrity.

How do you assess the Religious Right’s defense of religious freedom?

Belatedly, the Religious Right has taken up the cause of freedom, and it even sounds the note that religious freedom is the root of all freedom. It gives firm support to the necessary protest against religious persecution and discrimination in communist-sphere countries and elsewhere. But the Religious Right often fails the freedom test on two scores.

For one thing, it tends to be interested primarily in Christian freedom, necessary though Christian freedom is in the present secular climate. It is much less interested in religious freedom “across the board.” It little realizes that evangelical Christianity blossoms in a context of universal religious freedom and that where a state church (or mosque or synagogue) prevails, there the gospel is stifled or stifles itself.

Also, the Religious Right—and it is not alone in this regard—does not carefully distinguish between the theological view of freedom and the secular or naturalistic view. The Enlightenment perversion of freedom rests on the mistaken premise of human autonomy, and it betrays its champions into servitude under spurious lords. The Christian view protects man’s duties and rights under God, and knows that the service of God is true freedom.

How effective is the Religious Right politically?

Some of its spokesmen are naïve about the political process. They have made almost no legislative gains, despite attracting vast sums of money, because they do not recognize that legislation is not a matter of divine absolutes but of compromise that reaches toward the ideal in a fallen society. The Right could have carried the antiabortion cause if it had gone for 98 percent of its objective (even if only as an intermediary position) instead of insisting on the whole.

The Right has legitimate concerns about religious freedom, public education, and the Constitution as a document of fixed principles not to be sociologically reinterpreted. Yet on the one hand some are prone to treat the Constitution as if it were a supplementary source of divine revelation, while on the other hand some would alter the Constitution to define all fetal abortion as murder and to require a balanced budget. And the Right’s attacks on secular humanism in public education, while well taken, sometimes are so broad that they seem to reflect adversely on liberal-arts learning as such.

To what extent will the Religious Right identify with President Reagan during his last two years in office?

The Right has no choice but to go with Reagan or to opt out of the fray, even though Reagan leans toward moderation to get his tardy program through a Democratic Congress. The nation needs an agenda, a cause, a master plan. If the Republicans are to inspire national enthusiasm, the President must detail an overall game plan and indicate clear guidelines.

The mere passage of time will not guarantee a better future. The colossal budget deficits are nothing less than immoral, and they embarrass claims of a reversal of big government spending. Some right-wing critics complain that Reagan has given little more than lip service to their concerns of abortion, school prayer, and South African sanctions. Yet the disposition to see these concerns as more important than, say, the Iran arms/hostage crisis, has embarrassed them, since the President’s basic competence as a leader suddenly became a central issue.

How much impact do you expect the Religious Right to have in the 1988 presidential race?

The force of the Religious Right has been fractured by lack of consensus on which presidential aspirant to support. If Jack Kemp and Pat Robertson should derail George Bush—who, by the way, puts more distance between himself and the Religious Right—only to be themselves eliminated, the Religious Right may have to close ranks with the moderates or opt out of its messianic political mission of “saving America from communism, liberalism, and humanism.”

What are the pros and cons of Pat Robertson’s anticipated campaign for the presidency?

Many of Pat Robertson’s followers are unconvinced that he should have personally entered the political arena. Many evangelicals deplore a political test of the genuineness of their Christian commitment. They chafe at suggestions that “every real Christian will support Robertson” and that only Christian candidates “are worthy to hold office,” or that a Robertson candidacy is “the Christian opportunity of the twentieth century.” At the same time, Robertson is doubtless intellectually the best qualified of the electronic evangelists to serve in public office; his legal training is a high asset, although not every legally trained president has served the nation well.

What do you see as the future role of the Religious Right?

As long as utilitarianism and experimentalism run riot in the public arena, a political force is needed that stresses fixed principles, overall policy statement, and a comprehensive agenda. Remember that the Religious Right was provoked into existence by governmental intrusion into the area of religious values by the legalizing of abortion and the exclusion of prayer from the public schools.

Yet the Religious Right itself drifts closer and closer to “gut” issues and political utilitarianism. In the absence of a clear-cut political philosophy, it risks growing pragmatic and problemoriented. The Left has done that for so long that there hardly exists a need for more of the same.

If another election confirms the Religious Right’s limited impact on the national scene, its energies will then likely be focused locally on school board and regional elections. In those contests, the Religious Right may well learn some of the prudential skills it has too much neglected as a national movement.

What impact has the PTL scandal had on the larger evangelical movement? What implications do you see for the public-policy debate?

In a few short months, American evangelicals in 1987 have lost in public and news-media perception most of what Newsweek’s cover story on “The Year of the Evangelical” gained for them a decade ago. All too much of the movement is currently viewed in Elmer Gantry context. In a world that elevates sex and silver to center stage, six or seven prominent renegades can blur the image of 50 million “born-again” believers. But the real issue is Jesus Christ, not Jimmy, Tammy, or Oral. It is Jesus’ holy judgment alone with which all the rest of us flawed humans must sooner or later come to terms.

Public-policy debate had better keep in the forefront the issues of truth and godliness and justice. We had best shy away from flag wavers eager to lead the parade, but prone to follow drummers who know where the most dollar support lies.

You have criticized evangelicals for failing to stand together on certain issues, yet their diversity keeps them from becoming beholden to any one political point of view. How do we reconcile the diversity we see among Christians with the need to bring a Christian witness to bear on pressing societal issues?

The task is not the manufacturing of Republicans or Democrats but the clarification of social principles derived from Judeo-Christian revelation. From these enduring principles must follow platforms, policies, and programs. As we move from the biblical record to particular options we run the risk of fallible inferences. But there is so much on which regenerate Christians agree that we could have a shaping influence upon society and government. However, we must be propelled to action by our commonalities rather than view as enemies those who differ on secondary issues.

The bold public proclamation of the Bible in the churches and through the media, the call for civic righteousness, the exemplary community stance of believers, the integrity of Christian office holders, the mutual probing of legislative options, and a willingness to go for the better in the absence of the best when the best is not a live political prospect, form a starting point. It will not do to vote for a Christian candidate and to elect him if uncertainty clouds all the cognitive underpinnings of evangelical public involvement. Without conscious commitment to a common enterprise in the public sphere and to resolute reflection in quest of political prudence, evangelical engagement will not count for much in the long run.

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