Conservatives Without Conscience

Fundamentalist Christians retreated from politics and much of modern life after the Scopes trial in 1925, but their children, when they reached adulthood in the early 1940s, wanted to return to a more active public existence. This new generation called themselves “neoevangelicals,” and in 1942, they founded the National Association of Evangelicals, dropping the “neo.”[*] Unlike their parents, who “practiced extreme forms of separation, refusing to cooperate in common ventures with others who did not believe as they did,” the evangelicals “were bridge builders and were more willing to give some credit to, and treat with charity, those with whom they disagree.” The evangelicals, however, continued to share their parents’ tenets of faith. “Both believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible and hold that Christians must individually accept Christ and be born again, according to Christ’s words in John 3:5–8: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.’”[47] Thus, in a broad sense, the term “fundamentalist” covers evangelicals, but evangelicals in fact distinguish themselves from fundamentalists, and vice verse. (Except as noted, I have distinguished them. I use the term “conservative Christians” or “Christian conservatives” to cover both Protestants and Catholics.)

By 1978 increasingly politically active evangelicals had grown disenchanted with Jimmy Carter, whom they had helped put in office. They did not like his progressive Democrat policies, in general, but, in particular, they were offended by a proposal by the Internal Revenue Service to deny tax-deductible status to all private schools, including private Christian ones. Carter’s apparent acceptance of the IRS proposal caused uproar within the evangelical community. Reverend Tim LaHaye, the best-selling Christian author and one of the founders of the Moral Majority, met with Carter at the White House to discuss the measure, along with other concerns conservative Christians had about his progressive policies. Following their meeting, LaHaye reportedly left the Oval Office, lowered his head, and prayed: “God, we have got to get this man out of the White House and get someone in here who will be aggressive about bringing back traditional moral values.”[48] That is exactly what conservative Christians did. They worked like bees—literally millions of them devoted themselves to this task—and by 1981 they had significantly helped to put Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office.

Today evangelicals comprise the core of the religious right, and white Protestant evangelicals, depending on the poll, range from a quarter to a third of the electorate. A Zogby poll reported that conservative Christians account for an astounding 58 percent of all Republicans.[49] In 2000, 68 percent of white Protestant evangelicals voted for Bush and Cheney. In 2004 that statistic rose to 78 percent.[50] But it is not at the presidential level that conservative Christians have their greatest impact. “The religious right’s power lies in the lower parts of the Republican machinery, in precinct meetings and the like,” the Economist reported.[51] Without the support of Christian conservatives Republicans cannot even get nominated to local, state, and national offices, because they have become the filter through which all Republicans must pass today. Christian conservatives have a virtual lock on state and local Republican politics, and have totally outmaneuvered their opposition. “In American politics,” wrote Joel Rogers of the University of Wisconsin, “who controls the states controls the nation. The right understands this, and for a generation has waged an unrelenting war to take over state government in America. It has succeeded, in large part because it hasn’t faced any serious progressive counter effort.”[52]