Since 1980, predominantly white, American Evangelical Christians have been voting primarily for Republican candidates based on a small number of “key issues” promoted by organizations such as the so-called “Christian Coalition.” For 24 years, the top of list of key issues has been abortion.
Within the past 24 years, we have had 16 years of Republican presidents. Since the early 1990s, we have had a Supreme Court with a majority of Republican-appointed justices. Not only that, but Republicans have dominated one or both houses of Congress. So after 24 years, why has so little legislation against abortion been passed?
The Republicans have been able to accomplish many other things in the past 24 years; deregulation of multiple industries, tax cuts, three wars in the Persian Gulf, and the appointment of several justices, including five in the Supreme Court.
“Reagan’s failure to do anything for the antiabortion cause but speak to an annual pro-life rally... was an open joke in our circles.”
We can only think of one significant reason that so little has been done over such a long time: having a candidate score as a pro-lifer has proved to be the sure way to get your vote. From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, Republicans have made a lot of noise, but passed only token anti-abortion legislation.
David Brock, former conservative writer for The American Spectator voiced the following observation from Ronald Reagan’s presidency: “Reagan’s failure to do anything for the antiabortion cause but speak to an annual pro-life rally on the Mall (via a public address system from the Oval Office) was an open joke in our circles.”(1)
Let’s get one thing straight, this web site does not support abortion as contraception. We don’t, however, think legislation is the answer. We support a caring response in which the believing community provides women facing an abortion with the necessary resources and support to keep their children, should they choose to do so. Furthermore, we support legislation that is truly “pro-family.”
Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, co authors of The War Against Parents rightly point out that conservatives favor economic policies that put pressure on families:
Many conservatives refuse to recognize the ways in which market values destroy family values. In elemental ways, they do not get it. They fail to understand that we need to rein in free enterprise if we are going to create the conditions that support parents and nurture children. A free and unfettered labor market, for example, can seriously undermine family life by exerting enormous downward pressure on wage levels for young, child-raising adults. This is exactly what has happened over the last twenty years. Successive administrations, abandoning any notion of a social contract, have gotten out of the business of maintaining the value of the minimum wage, providing legal protections for labor unions, or placing limits on out-of-control corporate greed.
For all those allegedly pro-family Republicans, we want to ask:
With this election coming up, it looks like the smoke screen has changed it’s name, and abortion is no longer the top issue. What, you may ask, could possibly replace this issue of life and death? The answer is the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution written to “protect” the sanctity of marriage.
Proponents of this amendment don’t seem to have noticed that:
One other detail we noticed, the Federal Marriage Amendment is at the top of the Christian Coalition’s list of issues for Congress; abortion is down to number 13 of 15. And in case you were wondering, the Christian Coalition’s number two issue is... making Bush’s tax cuts permanent!!! What this has to do with following Jesus is way beyond us.
Although many, many Christians may cast their vote this November based on this one issue, we want to remind them that Jesus died for everyone, and that includes gays and lesbians. Shouldn’t we allow people for whom Jesus died the same rights that we all enjoy?
The civil definition of marriage in this country allows married couples a long list of rights and privileges: rights of inheritance, rights of hospital visitation, the right of next of kinship, the rights to the remains of the deceased spouse, and more. This amendment would take away those rights where gay marriage has already been recognize, and would offer nothing in its place.
Remember prayer in school? That was a big issue a few years back. It used to be on the score cards—the ones that the Christian Coalition and other groups would print up and make available at your church. It seems that school prayer is on the outs these days. What’s the replacement? Posting the Ten Commandments in public buildings throughout the U.S.
Congressman Aderholt’s (R, AL) bill gives the individual States the power to decide whether or not to display the Ten Commandments on or within publicly owned buildings. The bill does not mandate that they display the Ten Commandments, only that the individual states have the right to make their own choice. The Christian Coalition strongly supports this sensible solution to a divisive issue. (2)
What’s wrong with the Ten Commandments? First of all, not every citizen of the United States is Christian or Jewish. The first four commandments mean little to a Buddhist, Muslim, or agnostic. Second, those Christian/Republican groups who support this bill have a peculiar view of the Ten Commandments, not as the living Word of God, but as an icon of our “Judeo Christian values.” In the words of Focus on the Family:
It’s time to state the case clearly: America was founded on Judeo-Christian values; its Constitution and laws are solidly based on that foundation; and our concepts of fairness and equity are founded on those values. Therefore, America must stop allowing false and mistaken leaders to expunge references to God. In fact, we must retake the high ground and insist that America restore its foundation.
Dr. Dobson has written a letter to Focus supporters that spotlights the real issue of the Ten Commandments crisis — the destruction of constitutional rights by the federal judiciary. Read that letter here, and then contact your congressman and senators and urge them to act now to stop runaway federal judges.
This is from Dr. Dobson himself:
...this same Supreme Court is telling an elected Chief Justice that he can’t honor God’s law, which is the foundation for all U.S. law, when he promised the voters in Alabama he would do just that. They have allowed a federal judge to take away a fundamental right—a religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment. It represents a determination by the court to eliminate all references to God throughout the land.”
We think this is what Dobson and company are saying: 1.) posting the commandments “honors God’s law” 2.) Posting the commandments in a public is our constitutional right and 3.) the commandments represent our “Judeo Christian” values.
Dobson and company say nothing about the commandments themselves! We wonder if Dr. Dobson, Justice Moore, or any of the other Christian/Republicans have given the Ten Commandments any serious study. We further wonder if they are familiar with the work of any past or current Christian theologians and their discussions of law, grace, and if and how the Ten Commandments apply to Christians. Please click here for our note on the Ten Commandments.
“He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8
Perhaps we live in a rose-colored never-never land where we still hope that Christians might someday base their political scorecards on justice and mercy. Which candidates have done the most to promote justice, equal opportunity, and civil rights? Which candidates have shown mercy and kindness to the poor and the oppressed? Did not Jesus embody both justice and mercy by fulfilling God’s just requirement and thus becoming the channel for God’s infinite mercy?
If any Christian Republicans have stumbled upon this site, we offer you this twofold challenge: are your candidates Christ-confessors, or Christ followers in both word and deed? Do your candidates simply “score on ‘the issues’” or do they pursue justice and practice mercy? Ask these questions before you cast your vote.
“No Place to Stand” by Heidi Schlumpf, Sojourners Magazine,
June 2004
When you’re Christian, progressive, and “pro-life,” voting
your conscience is often easier said than done.
From the article:
Not only do Republicans have a spotty, at best, record on the broader social issues that contribute to abortion, they also have accomplished little on the promises they do make, leading some to wonder if they’re not all talk, little action.
“ The Republican approach to abortion makes for a nice election issue," says Ebener. "We hear a lot of rhetoric, but when it comes to actually taking action, what has happened in the last three years with a Republican Senate and White House?”
“How Ronald Reagan Wowed Evangelicals” by William Martin, Christianity Today, June 2004
This article is a retrospective on Reagan, how was courted the Evangelical vote without delivering on the issues important to the Evangelicals who voted for him.
From the article:
Though many conservative Christians still regard Reagan as the presidential paragon against which subsequent Chief Executives should be judged, he failed to deliver on a number of key expectations. He had said that the number of evangelical Christians in his administration would be proportionate to their strength in the population, but neither evangelicals nor "movement conservatives" got many posts of significance. Shortly after the election, he announced that serious consideration of a conservative social agenda would be postponed to give the administration time to focus on economic recovery. Though he welcomed right-to-life activists to the Oval Office, he failed to stem the tide of abortions and offered no support to the Helms-Hyde bill, which would have declared that life begins at conception. And he incensed many loyal supporters with his nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, since she had fought hard for the Equal Rights Amendment and for the legalization of abortion in Arizona. When legislators put forth a prayer amendment and an omnibus Family Protection Act that strongly supported traditional gender roles and placed limitations on homosexual relationships, the White House gave them no more than polite assistance.
What Reagan did give evangelicals, in great abundance, was symbolic affirmation in the form of photo-ops. For many, that was enough. Conservative columnist Cal Thomas, a key figure in the Moral Majority at the time, astutely noted, "Politics is a great seducer. As I'd travel around the country, I'd go into churches and I'd see featured prominently in the office of a hallway a picture of the pastor with Reagan. Nothing wrong with that, but that happened so many times that I think Christian people were sucked into the political process so that it became primary in their lives, and a moral and spiritual power that should've been theirs, to [enable them to] speak truth to power, seemed to be put on the back burner, because Ronald Reagan became the surrogate Messiah." In a similar vein, political columnist E. J. Dionne has observed, "I think Reagan sensed, correctly as it turned out, that he could maintain the loyalty of this constituency—because they still felt that, in his heart of hearts, he was with them—without doing much for them.”
“Did Pat Robertson Just Defend China’s One-Child Policy?” from Chritianity Today, Weblog, April 2001. This is Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition and the 700 Club, defending China’s policy of forced abortions. We could hardly believe it ourselves, until we found out that good ol’ Pat has a business venture in China. From the article:
“Well, you know, I don't agree with it,” he began, presumably referring to the one-child policy. Then he continued with a lengthy defense of the policy.
But at the same time, they've got 1.2 billion people, and they don’t know what to do. If every family over there was allowed to have three or four children, the population would be completely unsustainable.
Right now, they run the risk of a tremendous unemployment. There are some antiquated factories that the government owns that have to be shut down that is going to put hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people out of work. And the leadership is like on a teeter-totter board, they can fall off if the population gets too restive.
So, I think that right now they’re doing what they have to do. I don’t agree with the forced abortion, but I don’t think the United States needs to interfere with what they're doing internally in this regard.
(1)Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, David Brock, Crown Publishers, 2002, pp36-37
(2) Christian Coalition website, http://cc.org/issues.php?PHPSESSID=f59c2d91c3464dbe0a23c2352e019fe6
(3) Focus on the Family website, http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0027511.cfm
(4) Focus on the Family website, http://www.family.org/webextras/A0027494.cfm
*Shibboleth refers to an incident in Judges chapter 12 in which Gilead had a skirmish against Ephraim. If an Ephraimite tried to cross over to Gilead, he would be asked to say “Shibboleth.” An Ephraimite, however, could not pronounce “Shibboleth” and said instead “Sibboleth.” The Ephraimites would be slain for not pronouncing the word the way the Gileadites did.
When Biblical knowledge was more commonplace, a “shibboleth” was a testing point, a doctrine, belief, or practice to which one had to adhere to be counted as part of the group. (see Judges 12:1-6)
