Political Pandering to Evangelicals

The Brody File

David Brody

CBN News Senior National Correspondent

Is the Evangelical Movement at a Crossroads?

July 16, 2007

Thus, we now witness the pandering of the two major political parties to Evangelicals who have forgotten what the Gospel is about…

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

Let's just be open about this. It appears the Evangelical movement may be at a crossroads. The bread and butter issues of abortion and traditional marriage have started to become watered down. Now, all indications are that Evangelicals are becoming passionate about other issues too. Immigration, the environment and maybe, most of all terrorism.

So now what you have is two emerging camps: let's call them the "old guard" and the "new guard". The "old guard" wants the focus to stay on abortion, marriage and out of control unelected liberal judges. The "new guard" doesn't dismiss those issues but they want to broaden out the agenda.

There's a great article about this in The Dallas Morning News: Read excerpts below:

Democrats are starting to claim the mantle of faith in a different way. And many conservative evangelicals are beginning to question the movement's political priorities and focus instead on issues from the environment to terrorism.

said the Republican Party had taken evangelicals for granted and warned that if GOP moderates succeed in emphasizing economic interests over social issues, values voters will flee the party.

Mr. Scarborough and fellow Christian leaders Richard Land of the Southern Baptists and James Dobson of Focus on the Family insist that abortion and gay marriage must remain staples of the political culture war.

But surveys indicate that younger evangelicals are not as moved by the old "wedge issues" of homosexuality and government-sanctioned prayer.

A group of young, wealthy conservative Christians called Legacy is hosting presidential candidates for off-the-record sessions. Members want to expand the values debate to include the environment, international human rights and the AIDS epidemic.

And polling by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center finds two other issues are also top-line concerns of religious conservatives: terrorism and immigration.

What you have emerging here is the makings of a huge victory for the Democrats. Why? Let's play this out.

If GOP candidates continues to downplay abortion and traditional marriage and just pay it "lip service", the "old guard" may just stay home. Meanwhile, Democrats are talking more about their faith and playing to the "new guard" Evangelicals when it comes to immigration, the environment, poverty, etc.

The combination of those two factors could indeed lead to a Democratic Tsunami in 2008. Faith and politics scholar John Green says "There is a great deal of flux within these religious communities, a big debate over the agenda and some real unhappiness with the Republican Party."