Popular opinion, shaped largely by the mass media, has it that “Evangelicalism” is the “Republican Party at Prayer.” (In the 19th century it was said that the Church of England was the Tory (Conservative) Party at Prayer.”) It’s hard to blame people for thinking of evangelicalism as tied to conservative politics in the United States. The media have certainly portrayed it that way. Very seldom does one see or hear in the media any politically progressive or liberal evangelical.
However, all depend on how one defines “evangelical” and “evangelicalism.” As a church historian, Christian theologian and lifelong evangelical, I define them historically-theologically — according to the prototypes of the evangelical movement going back to Martin Luther, John Wesley, Charles Finney, D.L. Moody, and, of course, Billy Graham.
Evangelicalism was a movement rooted in the Protestant Reformation and revivalism; the movement may be dead and gone but its ethos lives on. The ethos of evangelicalism, “evangelical Christianity,” is defined by historian David Bebbington as a unique blend of four hallmarks: “Biblicism,” “conversionism,” “crucicentrism,” and “activism.” Evangelical means believing the Bible is uniquely God’s Word written, authentic Christian existence always includes a conversion experience, salvation is through Christ’s death only, and Christians should be active in spreading the gospel throughout the world.
Historically-theologically there is no one political posture — “right” or “left” — essentially tied to being evangelical. Especially during the 19th century American evangelicals were in the forefront of social reform; many of them would be considered politically progressive today. A prototypical evangelical denomination, the Free Methodist Church, was founded by progressive, social-reforming Methodist preacher B.T. Roberts (d. 1893), who today would be considered a socialist by many conservatives.
Even if most self-identified evangelical Christians happen to lean toward the political “right,” that is no proof that evangelicalism is essentially conservative politically. In fact, a person can be authentically evangelical and be anywhere on the political spectrum. During my lifetime two leading American politicians have been noted left-leaning evangelicals (John Anderson and Mark Hatfield). And when I was growing up in the “thick” of American evangelicalism in the 1950s and 1960s many, perhaps most of my fellow evangelical Christians had little use for politics at all.
So what happened? Why do the media pundits and talking heads (and many sociologists) talk as if evangelicalism is the Republican Party at prayer? Many books have been written by historians about this and there is no settled answer that has gained consensus. One possibility is the rise of the so-called “Religious Right” (Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, etc.) in the 1970s and 1980s.
But when one examines that phenomenon closely one sees that these were actually fundamentalists who began calling themselves “evangelicals” and grabbing political influence during the Reagan administration. One result was that many evangelicals, not wanting to be confused with fundamentalists (the far right wing of the evangelical movement), dropped the label “evangelical.”
Fundamentalism comes in many varieties and some are not political, but by and large the movement followed Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson into political activism. The voices of more progressive evangelicals were drowned out in the public sphere. The fundamentalists were the “darlings” of the television talk show hosts such as Phil Donahue, who allowed them to shape the narrative and control the discourse about “evangelical Christianity.”
Some of us who are lifelong evangelical Christians happen to believe that if Jesus were physically here among us today he would urge us, his followers, who call ourselves by his name, to use whatever influence and power we have — including “political clout” — to help the most vulnerable and weak among and around us. Some of us decline to tie our spiritual-theological wagon to any political party or platform but, at the same time, incline toward progressive politics because of Jesus’ manifest concern for the lowly, the powerless, the marginalized and excluded.
We hold all the traditional beliefs of evangelical Christianity, and we embody its spiritual ethos, including evangelism, but we read the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry as supportive of progressive politics especially on economic issues.
All that is simply to say that there is no necessary link or correlation between conservative politics and evangelical Christianity — whatever the media and the “popular mind” might say — unless one simply ignores history and theology and counts beans.
