Evangelicalism may be losing its sway

On Tuesday, James Dobson of Focus on the Family railed against Sen. Barack Obama for distorting the Bible and trying to govern by the "lowest common denominator of morality."

But if he was trying to rally his base of Christian evangelists to vote against Obama, he might need a lot more than a censorious radio address.

Evangelicals got credit for helping put George W. Bush in the White House, but religious and political scholars say they won't have nearly as much influence in this year's presidential race. The reasons, they say, are varied:

- Christian influence in politics has historically gone up and down since the early 1800s; this is another movement whose time may be up for now.

- The Bush administration hurt the evangelical cause - such as with the war in Iraq, its response to Hurricane Katrina and its alleged human rights violations at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center.

- Two of the movement's most important figures, D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell, are dead.

The biggest reason of all, though, may be the changing face of evangelicals themselves, experts say.
Evangelicals no longer seem to be the monolithic voting bloc they were a few years ago. A growing number don't think it's their place to politicize their faith, and many young believers are not interested in the traditional evangelical battlegrounds of abortion and gay rights; their focus is turning toward environmentalism and social justice.

In May, 70 Christian leaders signed "An Evangelical Manifesto," which calls for less politicizing of the faith and knee-jerk identification with the Republican Party. When Christianity is politicized, the manifesto said, "faith loses its independence, the church becomes ‘the regime at prayer,'" and Christians become "‘useful idiots' for one political party or another."

One of the manifesto's supporters was Leith Anderson, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who has been working to shift evangelicals' focus.

"The evangelical movement is changing as a younger generation is coming to leadership, as Hispanics and African-Americans increase in numbers, and as evangelicals engage the changing issues of the 21st century," Anderson said.

The congregation at Revelation Church in Colorado Springs is typical of the new evangelism. The median age of its parishioners is 33. Three-quarters of the congregation, which averages 70 people a week, is under age 40.

"The more explosive issues of gay rights and abortion, though very important, have resulted in losing worthy focus in other areas, such as ecology and social justice and care of the poor," said Mark Dunn, 47, pastor of the nondenominational church. "If we fixate too strongly on one or two areas, we can miss these others."

Recent surveys underscore the shift. Forty-seven percent of bornagain Christians under age 41 say they think the efforts of conservative Christians in politics are a problem, according to a 2007 survey by the Barna Group, an evangelical organization that studies Christian trends. While that's less than a majority, it's a far cry from where this demographic stood 10 years ago.

"There is a significant level of skepticism among young Christians, especially when compared with people of the same age a decade ago," said David Kinnaman, Barna Group president and co-author of "UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity," published in 2007.

Evangelism through the ages

Opinions differ on the future of U.S. evangelism, but most agree Christian activism in the U.S. is entering a new chapter, beginning this presidential election year.

Historically, that's nothing new. Since the 1800s, evangelism as a political force has gone through peaks and valleys. Some religious scholars say the Bush years represent the third wave of intensified Christian influence in America, the first taking place during the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s, and the second coming with the rise of fundamentalism in the early 1900s. Both fizzled as the movements fractured.

Though the roots of the most recent evangelical movement - generally characterized by its emphasis on faith-based politics - stretch back to the 1970s, it wasn't until Pat Robertson's run for president in 1988 that it became a force, said John C. Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The movement grew during the Reagan and Clinton administrations, the latter as Christian conservatives united in their opposition to the Democratic leader.

Randall Balmer, an American religious history professor at Barnard College in New York, calls the Bush presidency "the high point of political influence for the religious right."

The Christian right's credibility has suffered, though, as criticism of Bush's presidency increased.

"The religious right staked its credibility on the Bush administration, which has proven to be morally bankrupt," Balmer said. "And now the movement is collapsing under its own weight."

Jim Daly, Focus on the Family's president and chief executive officer, downplays the Bush administration's significance to the Christian right.

"Our advocacy for pro-family policies, at the federal and state level, has never been dependent upon who holds what office," Daly said. "We advocated for the sanctity of human life, the value of traditional marriage and other issues that affect the family before President Bush was in the White House, and we'll continue to do so after he leaves it."

Still, evidence of a decline, if not a collapse, in the movement has been mounting.

The Christian Coalition of America, founded in 1989 to give Christians a stronger voice in government policy, is struggling financially. Last year, Kennedy closed his Washington, D.C.-based CCA centers that advocated for Christian political influence.

And Dobson's failure to endorse presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain this year has caused barely a ripple among Republicans.

Moreover, counterattacks on Dobson this week over his comments about Obama have been heated and have included conservative Christians.

After Dobson's statement Tuesday, Texas pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, who is a friend of the Bush family, and other Christian leaders launched a Web site, www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com. Visitors are asked to sign in and express their disapproval. On Friday, more than 10,000 people had signed in, according to the site.

Gay rights and abortion

This isn't to say that the Christian right has lost all its power. During the administration of George W. Bush, the bloc has been successful in pushing for the confirmation of conservative federal judges and justices, and securing the passage of state laws restricting abortions and defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

But several experts question how deep the religious right's legislative impact has gone, because state abortion laws by and large remain intact and more states, including Colorado, are passing gay civil rights laws. On June 16, California became the second state to allow same-sex marriages.

"When you look at mobilizing evangelicals and helping get politicians elected, the religious right hasn't done half bad," Green of the Pew Forum said. "But if you look at profoundly changing the law, they have not had nearly the success."

Christian conservatives' emphasis on gay rights and, to a lesser extent, abortion to the exclusion of other issues is an important reason for the movement's decline, several scholars and church leaders said.

"Evangelicals of the older generation have become obsessed in almost a technical psychological sense in opposing gay rights," said David Weddle, professor of religion at Colorado College. The irony, Weddle said, is that "homosexuality is not a biblical theme." There are only six biblical passages that address same-sex relationships, he said.

Some polls show that young bornagain Christians are more tolerant of gays and lesbians. According to a 2007 Barna study, 28 percent of born-agains, of which evangelicals are a subset, under age 42 think it is morally acceptable to have sex with someone of the same gender, compared with 13 percent of older born-agains.

And nearly 33 percent of young Bible believers support abortion rights, compared with 27 percent of older believers - a surprisingly high percentage for both age groups, Kinnaman said.

"The people in the pew don't always match the perspective of the leaders," Kinnaman said.

The new evangelism

Daly is confident that Christian conservatism as a political force is alive and well, even among young evangelicals. Bolstering his claim is that 60 percent of white evangelicals between ages 18 and 29 are registered Republican, a 2008 Pew Forum study found. That's up from 40 percent in 2007 and provides a conservative Christian base for Republican Party platforms opposing abortion rights.

But high-profile leaders such as Dobson might have to work harder than ever to influence their vote. Frank White, president of the National Religious Broadcasters and a signer of the "Evangelical Manifesto," predicted that the fragmentation of the mass media makes it a challenge for Christian leaders to develop the large audiences they had 30 years ago when the evangelical movement was in its infancy.

"Today it's much harder to develop the kind of audience that Dobson and (Charles) Stanley had when they started out," White said. "I think we'll see a more diverse leadership without the public stature that we've seen in the past."

Anderson, meanwhile, isn't concerned about who the next Christian leaders will be and whether evangelicals should vote Republican or Democrat in the next election.

"The future of evangelicalism will remain strong as long as we center our message and our lives on Jesus Christ," Anderson said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0367 or mark.barna@gazette.com. Mark Barna is not associated with the Barna Group.

CHANGING BELIEFS

Younger evangelicals are less strident about the major issues of the Christian right, notably opposition to gay rights, and the politicizing of the faith.

- 28 percent of born-again Christians under age 41 say they believe it is morally acceptable to have sex with someone of the same gender, compared with 13 percent of older born-agains.

- 33 percent of young Bible believers support abortion rights, compared with 27 percent of older believers.

- 47 percent of born-agains under age 41 say that the efforts of conservative Christians in politics are a problem.

- More info: go to www.barnagroup.com, click on Barna Updates, clock on All Barna Updates, click on the story "Sept. 24, 2007, A New Generation..."

THE BARNA GROUP, 2007 STUDY