TOP STORY: REPUBLICANS AND RELIGION: San Diego GOP convention is religious right’s moment in t

c. 1996 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When the Rev. Jerry Falwell showed up in Detroit for the 1980 Republican National Convention, he came alone, an anomaly among both Republicans and conservative Christians.”In those days, the philosophical barrier we had to overcome was the belief that religion and politics do not mix,”recalled Falwell, founder of the […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) When the Rev. Jerry Falwell showed up in Detroit for the 1980 Republican National Convention, he came alone, an anomaly among both Republicans and conservative Christians.”In those days, the philosophical barrier we had to overcome was the belief that religion and politics do not mix,”recalled Falwell, founder of the now-defunct Moral Majority, the organization that first drew broad attention to the movement now known as the religious right.”Both evangelicals and Republicans felt that way,”he said.

Falwell has attended every Republican convention since 1980 and this year’s gathering that begins Monday (Aug. 12) in San Diego will be no exception. But these days, Falwell is anything but a lone voice.


In the years since Detroit, conservative Christians _ mostly white, evangelical Protestants and tradition-oriented Roman Catholics _ have become a major force within the Republican Party and San Diego is shaping up as their strongest display of political power to date.”Religious conservatives have broken out of the inhibitions we had in earlier years,”said Falwell.”We now believe that what it takes to make a good Christian is also what it takes to make a good citizen. Things have certainly changed for us and the Republican Party.” The cornerstone of the Christian conservative”pro-family”agenda is opposition to abortion, an outgrowth of what Richard J. Mouw, president of the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., called”our Puritan heritage and its emphasis on restrained sexuality.” In San Diego, Christian conservatives already have forced the party’s presumptive candidate, Bob Dole, to back away from the so-called tolerance language on abortion he wanted in the main body of the GOP platform as a sign to Republican moderates that they still have a place in the party. Wednesday (Aug. 7), Republican platform writers stuck the tolerance language in a platform appendix along with other defeated amendments.

While GOP moderates called it a compromise they can live with for the sake of party unity, it clearly represented a major victory for the religious right, which insists that there can be no compromise on abortion.”Abortion is the taking of innocent life, which is counter to the word of God and as such there is simply no room to compromise on the issue,”said Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, which was founded by one of the religious right’s leading figures, James Dobson of Focus on the Family.

Phyllis Schlafly, another often-quoted Christian conservative activist who leads the Republican National Coalition for Life, added:”The platform committee’s action demonstrates that the Republican Party is the proudly pro-life party.” However, there are some Christians who, while sharing some of the beliefs of the religious right, worry that the movement’s ascendancy also has given rise to a kind of political triumphalism that could damage it, as well candidate Dole.”We evangelicals sometimes come across as a very uncivil people,”said Mouw, the Fuller Theological Seminary president.”We’re getting too confrontational and showing a spirit of intolerance. Rather than talking about taking over the nation, or the Republican Party, it’s more proper for us to talk about waiting for God to deal with the issues in a conclusive manner.”But we’re very new at this and so religious conservatives are still struggling with translating the language of the revival meeting _ which was often oversimplified, anti-intellectual and highly emotional _ into the language of mainstream politics.” Still, Mouw, one of about 50 signers of the 1973 Chicago Declaration that urged evangelicals to take a progressive stand on social issues, also defended Christian conservatives for insisting that religious beliefs have a place in the presidential campaign.”We didn’t start the argument,”he said.”Others decided they wanted to liberalize the society and make their liberal ideas a matter of law. The political involvement of evangelicals and other conservative Christians is just a reaction to that.” Bauer, of the Family Research Council, also said Christian conservatives run the risk in San Diego of appearing too uncompromising and out-of-step with the majority of Republican voters _ not to mention Americans in general _ who polls have repeatedly shown are more accepting of abortion.

However,”political calculations of what will win,”he said, should not be the religious right’s primary concern.”That’s for others, the party professionals,”said Bauer.”We’re (in San Diego) to say what’s morally right, which I happen to believe is also politically right.” Falwell’s leadership role in the religious right has waned since 1980, when his acceptance by then-GOP presidential candidate Ronald Reagan fully opened the Republican Party’s door to politically active Christian conservatives.

Today, it’s the Christian Coalition _ the organization founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson following his failed 1988 bid for the GOP presidential nomination _ that arguably sets the tone for the religious right. Ralph Reed, the coalition’s media-savvy executive director, has emerged as the religious right’s leading strategist.

In contrast with Falwell’s low-key Detroit appearance, the coalition’s San Diego effort is a highly organized affair, featuring more than 100″floor whips”and the latest in computer gadgetry to enable the organization’s leaders to instantly communicate with convention delegates on any issue that may arise.

The coalition claims the loyalty of about 1,100 of the 1,990 delegates to the Republican convention. About 500 of the delegates are actual Christian Coalition members, according to spokesman Mike Russell. One of them is Robertson, who is a delegate from Virginia’s second district.


Despite its display of political power in San Diego, the coalition does have its problems. The Federal Election Commission recently accused the coalition of making illegal contributions to, among others, the 1992 campaign of President George Bush.

Critics, such as Carole Shields, a progressive evangelical who heads People For the American Way, a civil liberties group, say the FEC suit raises”ethical questions”about the Coalition. Russell dismissed such charges.”It’s a frivolous lawsuit,”he said of the FEC action.”We’ll proceed with our game plan. This is going to be our biggest operation yet.”(STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.)

Christian conservatives are not the only religious activists in San Diego, however.

Moderate and liberal Christians and others who consider abortion a matter of personal choice will also be on hand, holding rallies and news conferences and challenging the religious right’s claim that its position on abortion is the only appropriate one for people of faith.

The Rev. Jolene Cadenbach, a United Church of Christ minister from Arcadia, Calif., has prepared the liturgy for a San Diego rally planned by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.”We’ll affirm that abortion is a personal decision between a woman and God and her family,”said Cadenbach.”We know we can’t affect the Republican Party, but it’s important that we let people know that you can be a good Christian and still favor abortion rights.” To the average American watching the Republican convention on television, the tug-of-war between the religious right and moderate and liberal Christians over abortion may appear to be a sideshow to the gathering’s real business of officially launching Bob Dole as the GOP presidential candidate.

But don’t dismiss the importance of the side show to religious activists, said political scientist John Green.”The combination of religion and politics has been heightened to a degree unprecedented in modern American life,”said Green, who heads the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.”The main reason is the prominence conservative Christians have achieved in the Republican Party and in national politics in general. That’s forced liberals to organize in opposition,”he said.”For the activists, the sideshow is the convention. They are in San Diego simply to make their point, because everyone knows the outcome in advance. A certain amount of their activity is simply aimed at scoring points against the other side.”

MJP END RIFKIN

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!