Conservatives Without Conscience

Former senator John Danforth of Missouri (who served from 1976 until 1995) is an ordained Episcopal minister and a partisan Republican, and has made points similar to those of Jimmy Carter. Danforth has been called a “right-wing zealot in moderate’s clothing.”[66] Certainly he was to the right of Goldwater on the issue of abortion when they were colleagues in the Senate. Danforth cosponsored a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee legal protection to unborn children and overturn Roe v. Wade. Even he believes that conservative Christians have crossed the line.

Danforth wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in response to the insistence of Christian conservatives that the federal government intervene to save the life of Terri Schiavo. Speaking on behalf of mainstream Christians, Danforth observed, “When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.” He went on to describe in some detail (a selection of his statements are quoted and bulleted below) how conservative Christians operate and the impact they are having at the national level:

[C]onservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics…[when] equally devout [mainstream] Christians come to very different conclusions.

Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God’s truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God’s kingdom.

In the [past] decade…American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. [It is not] a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two.

[Mainstream Christians] reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. [Rather they] believe it is God’s work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today’s politics.[67]

Religious Authoritarianism

When Christian conservatives take their religious beliefs into the political arena, they also carry their authoritarianism with them. Studies (cited earlier in a footnote) show that the “acceptance of traditional religious beliefs appear to have more to do with having a personality rich in authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism, than with the beliefs per se.”[68] Bob Altemeyer offers a convincing explanation for why right-wing authoritarians are characteristically religious. Authoritarian parents transfer their beliefs to children through religious instruction. Christian conservatives tend to emanate from strict religious backgrounds, and often prevent their children from being exposed to broader and different views by sending them to schools with like-thinking children, or by home schooling them. This, in turn, results in an authoritarian outlook that remains strong during adolescence—the period when authoritarian personalities are formed and then taken into adult life.