Christians shifting their weight

Know how you can’t sit for long in one place without adjusting your position, stretching and renewing your energy? That’s what Christian evangelicals are doing right now. Between two very important elections, they’re bending and flexing to distribute their considerable weight properly.

The election of 2008 will be a defining moment in American politics. In addition to the oval office, this election will also determine who will control Washington for the next eight years. The current political atmosphere feels like an “agenda limbo.” Republicans seem to be gasping for breath, while Democrats are clumsily wielding their newfound power.

Things have certainly changed. The perception until that last election was that liberal Democrats were about social justice (among other things) and conservative Republicans were about traditional values (among other things), but neither party has a lock on either of those things, and Christians are looking at both parties with scrutiny now. It’s been coming…

In the 2000 election, evangelical Christians supported George W. Bush but they lost the popular election. In 2004, gay marriage and pro-life concerns woke up fearful evangelicals. They showed up and voted their values. In 2006, faithful evangelicals voted their values despite the lack of a clear, battle cry and misgivings about the true morality of the GOP. Unfortunately, evangelicals have fallen into the rut of being defined by what they are against, instead of what they advocate.

There it is again, that void of clarity and definition. Democrats gave voters no clear vision of what they stood for, but they clearly stood against Bush and the war, and that was enough. Republicans have just gotten more and more blurry, and some emboldened media and politicians hope the Christian Right will just…kind of go away. 

Much has been written about the waning influence of evangelicals in the political arena. Many sectors of our electorate hope that true believers will just “go back to church.” This is nothing more than wishful thinking—a theology of social involvement has been preached for over 30 years. In addition, there are students who are preparing to enter the public square—especially politics and law—at schools as diverse as Liberty University to Harvard For these reasons, the pulpit’s influence in politics will continue.

As it was in the beginning, at the founding of this country. 

The questions of the hour, however, are: What will this army of voters do in 2008? Can evangelicals find their voice in the next election? Or, will the mid-term defeat of the Republicans give them social laryngitis? I believe the day of blind allegiance by evangelicals to any party will soon come to an end. Leading evangelicals are painfully aware of the failings of both parties. In 2008, conservative evangelicals will begin to advocate culturally transforming policy initiatives. They will also begin to shun the image of being mean-spirited spoilers. After all, the word “gospel” does mean “good news.”

Sounds good. The troops of active ‘values voters’ are engaging the culture in a fresh, new way. That better include asking good, tough questions and expecting everyone to engage the debate. And looking for the inconsistencies in the arguments and actions of folks on all sides.

Liberal Christians are trying to crack the unity of evangelicals by sponsoring anti-war rallies and other events. Although there is no question about the evil of war, one has to question the political motives of people that say on one hand “the church should not be involved in politics” and on the other hand “march on Washington.”

Actually, the political motives are obvious. But that’s a good case of inconsistency. Here’s another:

National media ignored the May Day for Marriage of 2004 which brought several hundred thousand participants to D.C., yet they fawn over the efforts of 3,000 or so dissidents.

And how about virtually ignoring the March for Life on the Mall of Washington every January on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade? It has grown into an absolutely huge event. But when pro-abortion activists demonstrate in numbers a fraction of that, it’s all over the news. It’s hypocrisy, and of course, bias. That one does break along liberal/conservative lines, because there don’t tend to be many pro-life liberals.

Liberal newspapers and periodicals have also gone so far as to recently write profusely about a debate about the environment that is occurring behind the closed doors of the evangelical movement. The press has salivated as leaked letters exposed the internal, housekeeping efforts of a movement that has delivered over 60 million voters to the polls in past elections. These stories often do not report that there is a genuine, though intense, dialogue going on within evangelicals circles.

What the liberal press and liberal Christians are not ready for is that evangelicals will embrace the arguments that make sense without sacrificing their core principles. A behind-the-scenes transformation process is going on right before the nation’s eyes.

And considering that it involves a body of 60 million voters, the shift of weight ought to be obvious, and likely will be felt.