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Edited on Thu Dec-09-10 11:48 PM by hyphenate
One Nation Under God
Powerful new rhetoric on the religious right pits Obama and big government against ‘God’s America’—and promises to galvanize Christians in 2012.
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On Nov. 30, about a dozen moderate Christian leaders gathered for a meeting in Washington, D.C. Their colleagues on the religious right had been delivering a potent new message about God and country, of fear and domination, that was resonating among Christians and conservatives nationwide. Among those assembled last month were Jim Wallis, who has advised President Obama on matters of faith and politics; Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland church in Orlando, who has been an outspoken critic of public incivility; and Tony Campolo, a sociologist, pastor, and confidant of President Bill Clinton. Their purpose was tactical and forward-looking: how to use their broad communications networks to articulate a vision of Christianity that will counter a new—and newly powerful—religious-right rhetoric in advance of the 2012 election.
Gay marriage and abortion used to predictably drive religious-right voters to the polls. As recently as 2004, when evangelicals were credited with the reelection of George W. Bush, sex and sexual mores defined the sides in the culture wars. But no longer. As the economy has become the political priority for liberals and conservatives alike, the traditional family-values issues have been blunted—not in their importance to individuals but as weapons in the political theater. What’s motivating religious conservatives now, says Campolo, is a vision of America as God’s own special country, and free-market capitalism as crucial to the nation’s flourishing. Everyone who doesn’t see things this way, according to this perspective, is a socialist or a communist—“Pinkos who are subverting America under the auspices of the president of the United States,” he says. “The marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, laissez-faire capitalist system is ex post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian.” Support for Obama, in other words, equals an abandonment of American principles equals godlessness. And the spokesman for this movement, adds Campolo, is the Fox News commentator Glenn Beck. “There’s no question in our minds about that.”
Though Beck may not be every conservative Christian's idea of a leader, many moderate conservatives agree that the old-guard religious right—represented by Pat Robertson and James Dobson—and their social priorities have ceased to hold much sway in Washington. Further, they believe that something like Christian patriotism, what in theological circles is often called “American exceptionalism,” has replaced abortion and gay marriage as the rallying cry of the religious right. “Right-of-center independents and religious conservatives believe that America is an exceptional place,” says Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. “If you’re going to be a candidate or a leader of a party and you’re seen as a person who doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, you’re going to have a hard time winning.” And because the economy has obliterated almost every other issue, there is very little daylight between social and fiscal conservatives, says John Green, political scientist at the University of Akron. If the economy does not recover, “social issues may not be as much ‘wedge’ issues as in the past,” he writes in an email. “However, patriotism could be a classic wedge issue in 2012, creating Republican votes among groups with liberal or moderate economic views.”
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