The Rise of the Religious Right - Part VI of Religion and Politics

The second half of the 20th century saw major social and cultural changes. African Americans won a long battle for Civil Rights. Public schools desegregated. Children were bused out of their neighborhoods to distant schools to ensure desegregation. The Supreme Court ruled prayer and Bible Study in public schools to be unconstitutional. Huge protests erupted against the Viet Nam War. Many young people began experimenting with illegal drugs, including highly psychedelic ones. Women entered the workforce in large numbers. The Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, ensuring equal rights for women, passed the Congress and was ratified by numerous states, although it failed to pass a sufficient number of states to become effective. Abortions became legal and increased in frequency. Gay rights became a popular cause, culminating in the later Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of gay marriage. For many, the changes were deeply unsettling.

Following the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, public schools could no longer be segregated by race. Consequently, many churches, particularly in the South, established private Christian schools, which remained segregated. In the late 1960’s when the federal government threatened to remove tax exempt status from these schools, several Evangelical leaders concluded that the time had come to organize opposition to government intrusion into religious affairs. Up to that point, most Evangelical leaders maintained that religion and politics should remain separate. Simultaneously, Republican Party operatives saw an opportunity to break into the Democratic strongholds in the South by appealing to the white evangelical churches during the 1968 Presidential campaign. Thus began the gradual alignment of white evangelicals to the Republican Party.

Until the mid-1970’s opposition to abortion mostly arose from the Catholic Church. In fact, most Evangelical leaders were not opposed to abortion. But abortion rights became infused with the feminist movement. With the increasing numbers of women entering the work place, familial gender roles were being challenged. Abortion was seen as another way for women to assert their independence from men. Gradually, opposition to abortion, known as the right to life, became the cause celebre for Evangelicals.

What was lacking, however, was a systematic way to challenge these cultural changes. The establishment of the Moral Majority by Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1979 offered the solution. Falwell had preached earlier in his ministry that the Church and the State should be separate. However, in his view he had an awakening. He felt a God-led imperative to return America to its Christian foundations. The Moral Majority helped to usher in a religious/political movement that has survived and prospered to this day. It organized chapters around the country. It called for the involvement of Christians in all aspects of politics. It publicly supported candidates for office. The Moral Majority and other offspring organizations fashioned talking points and issues that determined whether a candidate should be supported by Christians.

In the first major political campaign following its formation, the Moral Majority supported the Presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Ironically, incumbent President Jimmy Carter had run for the Presidency and won in 1976, being the first major party candidate in history to proclaim he was “born again,” the watch phrase of the Evangelical movement. However, because Carter failed to support some of the positions of the Moral Majority, the organization swung its support to Reagan. With the Reagan election and the taking of the Senate by the Republican Party, for the first time in twenty-five years, the wedding of the Moral Majority and its various offspring to the Republican Party was sealed.

Since that time until now, there have been numerous Evangelical political organizations formed: the Family Foundation, Eagles Forum, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Coalition, Religious Roundtable, Faith and Freedom Coalition, Council for National Policy. While the emphases of each group differs, they agree on most things: opposition to abortion, opposition to gay rights and marriage, the nomination of conservative justices to the courts, smaller government (except for the enforcement of the above issues), gun rights, sexual abstinence before marriage, distinct roles between men and women, school choice, religious liberty, increased military spending, opposition to immigration and interestingly, support for Israel.

The political party in power has determined the influence of the various Evangelical organizations. During the George W. Bush administrations, Evangelicals influenced several policies, including successfully tapping taxpayer funded programs that assisted the needy by channeling them through church affiliated organizations. The Evangelical movement hit a low point during the Obama administrations. The administration kept Evangelical leaders at arms’ length and even targeted church organizations that were involved politically. Most surprising has been the almost unqualified support of Donald Trump by the movement. Consequently, the Trump Administration has granted greater access to Evangelical leaders than any before it. The Evangelical movement has influenced Trump Administration policies on the nomination of judges, opposition to the LGBT movement, opposition to abortion and various religious liberty issues. Despite a majority of Americans having an unfavorable view of President Trump, a huge majority of Evangelicals maintain a favorable view of him. His strongest support leading into the 2020 election campaign comes from Evangelical Christians.  

Next time: Israel’s Religion and State Conundrum