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Is the Christian Right Dead?

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mwkruse
in

John H. Armstrong: Is the Christian Right Dead?

Kathleen Parker asks, in her Washington Post syndicated column of April 5, this question: "Is the Christian right finished as a political entity?" By asking this question Ms. Parker is not asking if Christian involvement in moral issues is dead but rather "Is the Christian right finished as a viable movement and force in politics?" She thinks that it is. I have agreed with this premise since at least 2004, if not sooner. …

… I believe the following negatives are the direct result of the Christian right: …

Great post. I was raised in the Church of the Nazarene and had doubts about certain tenets of belief as a teenager. But it was while being subjected to a Jerry Falwell (c. 1980) Moral Majority campaign stop during a required chapel service at a Nazarene college that pushed me over the edge toward looking for a new home. I became PCUSA three years later while in grad school.

I don't know that the Religious Right is dead. I expect a resurgence with new faces in the not-too-distant future. I don't know if it will succeed. I mourn that their tactics and anti-intellectualism deeply harm many of the policy positions I share with the Religious Right. Those positions deserve better advocacy, and I think the nation will be poorer for not being persuaded of their legitimacy. That, I believe, will be the near-term legacy.

Comments

2 responses to “Is the Christian Right Dead?”

  1. David Brush Avatar
    David Brush

    I am happy to say that in many ways it is leaving the Church of the Nazarene. At least in some parts. The leadership has changed enough, and the education of pastors has shifted enough that this will be just a (unfortunate) part of our past as a denomination. You are right, there will be holdouts and hangers-on. But at my church this kind of thinking is long-past dead.

    Reply
  2. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    Very true, David. Survey data I’ve seen for COTN shows a remarkable shift in views in the last decade or two.

    Reply

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