More evangelicals reject the religious right and embrace a broader social gospel.

[marmar]

from The Nation:



article | posted March 6, 2008 (March 24, 2008 issue)
Who Would Jesus Vote For?
Bob Moser


Longwood, Florida

On the late-January Sunday before this state's decisive Republican primary, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee got praised and blessed and prayed over during morning services at one of the biggest conservative megachurches in the political swing region of Central Florida, Orlando's 14,000-member First Baptist. In a time when the much-ballyhooed evangelical political machine shows unmistakable signs of flying apart and scattering in uncertain directions, here was a momentary return to the old order. Here was Pastor David Uth doing just what an evangelical megaminister is supposed to do--anointing the nearest thing to a theocratic candidate as the more or less official choice of his church, while simultaneously sending the not so subtle signal that has issued forth from the nation's pulpits for three decades now: Christians vote Republican.

But while Uth was reinforcing that well-worn commandment, his encomium of Huckabee had something fresh about it. Rather than emphasize the governor's Dark Age convictions on culture-war issues, or his wild-eyed pledge to amend the Constitution in the Lord's image, Uth told a story dating from the civil rights era. His father had tried to integrate his Baptist flock in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and, to make a long story short, the Uths got run out of town by the Klan. But the elder Pastor Uth was followed in the Pine Bluff pulpit by a young Mike Huckabee, who successfully "broke the race barrier." His admiration for the candidate, Uth said, stems from their common conviction that if the church "isn't for everybody, it isn't for anybody."

If this wasn't exactly revolutionary talk--and if Huckabee hadn't exactly run the kind of inclusive campaign Uth's anecdote suggests--the change in tone is characteristic of the sharp, surprising turn evangelical politics is taking. Even if you're endorsing Huckabee, it seems, you're duty-bound in 2008 to find a broad-minded rationale for doing it.

Just four years ago, when unprecedented turnout by born-again "values voters" was credited with ensuring George W. Bush's re-election, the political face of evangelicalism was Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, screeching red-faced to football-sized crowds about gay marriage as "the Waterloo," "Gettysburg" and a force that "will destroy the earth." Now the Moral Majority generation of Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly, the folks who fired up politically apathetic born-again Christians in the 1970s by declaring war on public schools, abortion rights, gay rights and "liberalism," has lost its grip on the movement--partly by refusing to expand their agendas to suit a rising generation of younger evangelicals who care more about global warming than winning elections for corporate Republicans, more about combating poverty than denouncing homosexuality. With one-quarter of Americans identifying themselves as evangelicals--about 4 percent more than those who say they're mainline Protestants--the political stakes could hardly be higher. But the political upshot could hardly be murkier. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080324/moser

[riderinthestorm]

1. Ah yes, the evangelicals attempt to rehabilitate their public image

Of course they still believe that "gay marriage" is "the Waterloo," "Gettysburg" and a force that "will destroy the earth." " And they still get their knickers in a knot about public schools, abortion rights, gay rights and "liberalism,". But hey, they also care about the environment!

Same snake, different skin.

[MadHound]

2. Sorry, but this piece is nothing but crap, trying to provide cover for evangelicals

Evangelicals still vote in overwhelming numbers for the most conservative candidate out there. They still try to push their brand of "morals" on the rest of us via initiatives like the marriage amendments and anti-stem cell amendments, and such. They are still overwhelmingly racist, bigoted homophobes who's first instinct is to fire the gun before extending the olive branch. Are there exceptions, sure. But the vast majority of them are still the driving force behind the religious right.

[KG]

3. wishful thinking or whistling past the graveyard?

bummed to see 'the nation' printing this bilge.