TRANSITION | Forming the next government
29 January 2008
What Do Evangelicals Want in 2008?
Pastors say broad list of issues will rule voter choices
Washington -- A major shift in priorities of evangelical Christian voters is under way, according to recent polls and Christian evangelical leaders. Perspectives have broadened. Global poverty, climate change, world peace and HIV/AIDS are issues that will sway many evangelical voters in 2008, in contrast to a narrower agenda in 2004.
“The religious landscape in 2008 will be dramatically different than 2004,” partly because Democratic frontrunners are “explicitly and articulately” discussing their Christian faith, says Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, a Washington-based Christian social justice group. “That’s a big sea change,” he told America.gov.
Democrats previously had been perceived as less religious than Republicans.
Possibly more significant, the “agenda of faith communities, including evangelicals, has changed dramatically,” Wallis says, “because now it’s demonstrably clear that the issues that concern evangelicals go far beyond abortion and gay marriage.” He names top global issues like poverty and pandemic disease. “Climate change is now ‘creation care.’ It’s a religious matter,” he says.
Around the 1970s, some evangelical Christian tenets became politicized and over the decades evangelicals edged toward the political right, becoming a force in the Republican Party. By 2004, their votes were driven by two issues: abortion and same-sex marriage. The change to a broader agenda is significant.
“These issues are now all mainstream evangelical issues: the environment, war and peace, human rights violations. Sex trafficking is a huge issue for the younger generation.”
Wallis, on the progressive left of a continuum that extends to ultra-conservative Christians, is in the minority among evangelicals. Yet his best-selling 2005 book, God’s Politics, helped change the conversation among Christians in the United States. His new book, The Great Awakening, examines the implications of applying faith to social justice issues.
“Something is happening that will not trickle down from the top, but will rush up from the bottom and change the wind of politics,” Wallis told a panel of conservative evangelical pastors at George Washington University January 23.
Panelist Richard Cizik explains, “We have an agenda as evangelical Christians which begins with religious freedom and sanctity of life principle, and protecting the family and children, but it very importantly includes all the principles of human rights, of peacemaking, of caring for creation.”
Cizik is vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an organization that boasts 45,000 member churches of 54 denominations and a constituency approaching 30 million. Cizik voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004. He now strongly advocates quick action to mitigate the effects of global warming, and says many evangelicals agree. “A few years ago, evangelicals would have said, ‘What? I don’t even believe it’s occurring.’ That’s the change.”
“We are no longer single-issue voters,” he says. “We are not going to blindly follow dominant leaders in the religious right or otherwise who are telling us what to believe.”
Lynn Hybels, co-founder of the Willow Creek Community megachurch in Barrington, Illinois, adds, “Now we are returning to a more holistic view … which is not just redeeming people’s souls but it’s about redeeming and restoring everything that is broken in this world.” Fighting HIV/AIDS and poverty in Africa is her special concern.
“I do think there is now a maturing of the movement,” Joel Hunter, who leads the influential Northland megachurch in Florida, says. He likens it to adolescence, when “you define yourself by what you hate, by what you’re not. And as you grow up you have to start defining yourself by what you are, what you want to build.”
ETHNIC TIES AFFECT EVANGELICALS’ POLITICAL PRIORITIES
African-American and other ethnic evangelicals have separate concerns. Cheryl Sanders, Howard University ethics professor and pastor of the Third Street Church of God in Washington, points to racism as an issue still to be addressed. “In the history of the African-American church, there hasn’t been a time when it’s been detached from the social and political message,” she said.
“Immigration reform, that’s a moral issue for Latino evangelicals,” according to Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. It is also a divisive one.
Panelists agreed that although abortion and other family centered issues remain important, the younger generation wants to express faith through social action.
“The evangelical community is in flux politically,” says John Green, Pew Forum senior fellow in religion and American politics. “There is a big generational effect, with younger evangelicals being less Republican and also being very interested in a broader range of issues.”
“Younger evangelicals have not become Democrats in large numbers, but many have moved away from being Republicans to being independents. And that’s important. That makes it possible for Democrats to attract their votes,” Green told America.gov.
Old-guard evangelicals still hold their ground, and the conservative NAE has come under fire from ultra-conservatives for “progressive” statements.
“Religion is a very important factor in American politics,” Green says, “it always has been.” But how it will affect the 2008 presidential election is an open question. (See “The New Evangelical Agenda.”)
