Disillusioned, some evangelicals leaving politics, writer says

Evangelical Christians, traditionally supporters of the Republican Party, may not be hitting the polls in great numbers this November, Laurie Goodstein, a reporter for The New York Times, said yesterday in her lecture "Backlash: Are Evangelicals Disillusioned with Politics?"

"We are seeing the start of disillusionment round three," Goodstein said. "This is not just evangelicals disillusioned with the Republican Party, but evangelicals disillusioned with politics."

Goodstein's research has found that many Christians are hesitant to categorize themselves as evangelicals because of the denomination's political implications.

According to a recent Baylor poll she quoted, while 33 percent of Christians polled named their house of worship as an evangelical church, only 15 percent categorized themselves as evangelical.

"Evangelicals are not giving up these concerns," Goodstein said of their traditionally conservative positions on issues such as sexuality in mass culture, abortion, birth control and homosexuality. "The difference is in terms of how to make those changes."

Goodstein referred to a series of sermons called "The Cross and the Sword," in which Gregory Boyd, a pastor in Minnesota, tells Christians to seek power through sacrifice and civil service rather than by implementing policy change.

Instead of rallying for a constitutional amendment against abortion, Goodstein said, evangelicals like Boyd are trying to implement change by appealing to individual people's hearts and beliefs.

"I'm interested in what regular evangelicals feel — how they're making sense of the recent foray in politics," she said.

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She noted that though most are Republican, not all identify strictly with either party. About 20 percent would call themselves progressive, and a core group of "more liberal" evangelicals want radical Christians to focus on global justice issues like poverty and AIDS in Africa.

For example, Rick Warren, author of "The Purpose-Driven Life" and outspoken activist against AIDS in Africa, has recently struck up talks with Jim Wallace, a promoter for the U.S. evangelical community, she noted.

"People are listening to [Warren] because of what he has had to say about their lives," Goodstein said. "He can carry a lot of people along with him."

The evangelical community also faces the issue of global warming, a problem only some view as man-made.

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After her lecture, Goodstein commented on evangelism in the broader historical context of religious awakenings.

"There are a lot of people, including the president, who think that we are in a third great awakening. In some ways, I can see that," she said. But, "we're a multicultural, multi-religious and multi-faith society. The seculars in society are more assertive."

Nonetheless, Goodstein called the addition of two Roman Catholic judges to the Supreme Court last year — John Roberts and Sam Alito '72 — "an accomplishment" for evangelicals who hope the Court will now address issues from a moral perspective similar to their own.

The lecture was the second in a "Crossroads of religion and politics" series presented by the Center for the Study of Religion and The Wilson School.