The Christian Right: Both Christian and right(wing)

Billy Sunday

I'm going to be posting quite a bit about the Christian Right here. And I use the term Christian Right rather than "Religious Right," because it's simply more descriptive. The relationship of extreme Christian conservatives to extreme Jewish conservatives is one of the stranger stories among many odds tales about the Christian Right. But it's mainly conservative Protestants and Catholics, and even that level of ecumenical cooperation is disturbing to many of them.

Everyone has some idea of who the Christian Rightists are. Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell are well-known names among their leaders. The have many Congressional allies among the Republicans, from Tom "the Hammer" DeLay in the House to Rick "man-on-dog" Santorum in the Senate. Organizations like the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family are also familiar names.

There are two basic things I try to keep in mind in thinking about the Christian Right. One is that they are coming from a religious viewpoint. Religion, like all human endeavors, has its share of opportunists, careerists and cynics. But the Christian Right is operating from a religious framework, specifically a Christian religious one. And their positions and actions cannot be understood without putting them into their religious context.

It's tempting to use the term "fundamentalists" as a synonym for the Christian Right. In fact, I think it's unavoidable, and I sometimes use that shorthand myself. But the adherents of the Christian Right are largely drawn from Christian fundamentalists, Pentecostals and hardline Catholic conservatives. However, in practice, the fundamentalist beliefs tend to be the public face of the movement, because those are close to a common denominator for those groups. Catholic conservatives insist on a central role for the institution of the Catholic Church. Fundamentalists and Pentecostals tend to see the Catholic Church as an illegitimate, if not downright Satanic, thing. Pentecostals use rituals like exorcism and "speaking in tongues" that fundamentalists and Catholics tend to shun.

Rigid definitions are not possible, because these religious groups themselves are fluid. To illustrate, it's worth understanding the distinction made in America between evangelicals and fundamentalists. This can get to be confusing, because in Europe "Evangelical" is used as a synonym for "Protestants." In America, evangelicals are those who believe in what's known as "born-again Christianity." This includes fundamentalists, but not all evangelicals are fundamentalists. And a lot of the difference has to do not with theology or ritual, but with social attitudes and degrees of flexibility in interpreting Christian teachings.Here is one evangelical Christian's definition of the born-again "Plan of Salvation":

God loves all of us. ...

All of us are sinners. ...

Sin separates us from God. What are the consequences of our violating God's moral code? There is a clear and disturbing answer: "For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).Jesus came to remove the barrier of sin. ...

It is through our faith in Christ that we receive these blessings.

All evangelicals, including fundamentalists, would recognize the Plan of Salvation as a basic and familiar part of their faith.

This particular version is taken from Jimmy Carter's Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith (1997).

And that illustrates something important for understanding the distinction between "evangelicals" and "fudamentalists" in their American forms. The Religious Right regards Jimmy Carter and what he stands for in politics, diplomacy and general tolerance pretty much the opposite of their goals. Yet the theology of his professed religious views is closer to that of fundamentalists than to Episcopalians or Congregationalists.

Similarity, many African-Americans are part of churches that hold evangelical theological views. But the Christian Right is mostly white people, despite their PR efforts to display multiculturalism among their adherents. And though they are a national phenomenon, their influence tends to be noticeably stronger in the South than in other regions. Both those facts are also important to understanding this movement.

Because the second basic thing I try to keep in mind in looking at the Christian Right is that their political positions are not always direct consequences of their religious or theological beliefs. Someone can believe the abortion is a sin and against the will of God, and still support pro-choice laws as sound public policy. A person can believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong but still consider it unethical and wrong to promote medical misinformation about condoms among teenagers.

So, as I blog here about issues on the intersections of politics and religion, and on the Christian Right in particular, I'll be using those guidelines. On the one hand, recognizing that these activists are operating from a Christian and religious viewpoint. And, on the other, recognizing that their political positions have to be recognized and understood as what they are. Because even though the Christian Right tries to place them into a religious framework, other believers with very similar religious views may see those political positions in a very different way.

Tags: authoritarianism, christian right, christianism, jimmy carter