I am heartened by E.J. Dionne Jr.'s Piece in the Washington Post today...
It is not perfect, but it gives good basic history on the marriage between evangelical christians and the Republican party...
Since 1980, white evangelical Christians have been seen primarily as a Republican voting bloc. They delivered more than three-quarters of their ballots to President Bush in the 2004 election.
That is no accident. In 1979, a group of conservative activists led by Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation and Morton Blackwell, a Republican National Committee member from Virginia, went to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, urging him to organize what became the Moral Majority.
Their primary goal was not religious but political: to enlist evangelicals behind conservative Republican candidates. Blackwell candidly called evangelicals "the greatest track of virgin timber on the political landscape." The activists reaped a mighty load.
It also highlights that there are folks in the evangelical fold who want religion and spirituality to be the focus- NOT politics How refreshing!
Rev. Rich Cizik, the National Association of Evangelical's vice president for governmental affairs, survived an attack by the likes of James Dobson (Focus on the Family) and Paul Weyrich (Free Congress Foundation). The reason for this attack? Having the gall to suggest that people who purport to be Christian have a duty to protect creation... to recognize the damage we are doing to the planet and to acknowledge that global warming is REAL...
"Cizik and others," they said, "are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."
To their credit the NAE ignored the letter-- a glimmer of hope. While this group's stance on most things is too conservative for me-- I am glad to know that many evangelicals are figuring out that politics does them a disservice and does not further the causes they find most important.
The NAE did use their meeting to highlight important issues for them:
"For the Health of the Nations" outlined seven areas of civic responsibility for evangelicals, including creation care along with religious freedom, nurturing the family, sanctity of life, compassion for the poor, human rights and restraining violence.
If this group would take a real social justice view about the above seven areas... and work for REAL change, not just pushing the latest version of what is "moral"... that would be more than just fine by me.