Break Up? The Dealignment of the Christian Right from the Republican Machine

Last updated on: March 20, 2014 at 10:46 am by Guest Contributor

Break Up? The Dealignment of the Christian Right from the Republican Machine 2014-03-20T10:46:00-05:00 Guest Contributor

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For the past twenty years the Christian right have been labeled the ‘backbone’ and ‘base’ behind the Republican Party’s electoral successes, a view that deepened with Bush’s consecutive victories in 2000 and 2004. Until recently the alignment between evangelical Christians on the Christian right and the Republican party had gone unquestioned. Their symbiosis and power based on the constant re-iteration of the movement’s importance amongst commentators and academics, all stressing the fixity and importance of Christian conservatives to the American political landscape, especially come election time. The arguments are well versed. Since Reagan, Republicans have pitched themselves as the ‘religion friendly party’ of America reaching out to a predominantly Protestant evangelical base, promising to enact a Christian agenda for votes and support. Christian conservatives in return picket, strategize and vote Republicans to power, and help to formulate and drive a moral Christian agenda with the sympathetic ear of their Republican partners. This fusion of the spiritual and political, has coined various theonomic descriptors from ‘republicanity’ to ‘theo-con’ – the synthetic blend of conservative ideology and Christian theology.[1]

During the Bush era Christian right success-stories reached a peak. Successes such as the 2001, OFBCI (Office of Faith Based Initiatives) now OFBNP (Office of Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships) that channels federal funds to ‘compassionate conservative’ Christian groups; to the UVVA (Unborn Victims of Violence Act) of 2004 which granted personhood to fetuses and challenged Roe vs. Wade; to other anti-abortion measures at the state-level aimed at ‘changing the hearts and minds’ with compulsory pre-termination sonograms have raised the profile of conservative Christian activism. Other efforts include their continued opposition to homosexual marriage, which they have successfully lobbied for with sympathetic state legislatures to restrict marriage to unions of one man and one woman. During Bush’s tenure moral legislation appeared to reach its apogee. As Arnal has commented this ‘R’evival of religion within American political discourse has spawned ‘a cottage industry, busy fretting about the Christian right’ ranging from the inquisitive and scholarly, to the fear-mongering diatribe and polemical hatchet job.[2] However, ironically, just as researchers have warmed to this glowing example of the post-secular and its significance within American politics, are we now witnessing this relationship’s sunset?

This shift centers predominantly around Obama’s re-election in 2012, though one could perhaps see it as early as Bush’s departure and McCain’s defeat in 2008 – where dollars trumped morals as the voting-concern of American Jane and Joe. Though evangelicals, Protestants and Catholics, of the Christian right turned out for Romney in 2012, it was not enough. Other groups, Black, Asian and Latino voters were more salient. Combs, President of the Christian Coalition said on reflection, ‘evangelicals turned out in record numbers and voted for Romney, but it just wasn’t enough.’ [3] In the light of the 2012 election Marty asked ‘had it been over-rated all along?’ [4] Did the Christian right truly have the convening and voting power they claimed? Academic commentators lamented that the relationship between evangelical Christians and Republicans had been over-determined: ‘[2012] was the last election where a white Christian strategy was workable’ said Jones of the PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute).[5] For conservative Christian activists the shift from electoral lynchpin to sideshow was even more pronounced, forcing many to question whether their days of political influence are over. Though some in the movement see the 2012 defeat as a hiccup, as Vander Plaats of the ‘Family Leader’ claimed, ‘…we’re not going away, we just need to recalibrate…’,[6] other faith leaders believe it will take more than tweaks to the movement’s message to change their political fortunes. Mohler, for instance, leader of the Southern Baptist Convention was less sanguine: ‘it’s not that our message [that] …abortion is wrong…and same-sex marriage is wrong didn’t get out — it did get out. It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed. An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.’ [7]

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