Is the Christian right withering? Aug 11, 2007
Stuart Laidlaw
faith and ethics reporter
Jennifer and Mike Nevarr live a comfortable life in Virginia, where he runs a landscaping business and preaches in a local church. Jennifer stays home to take care of their five children in their two-storey suburban house. By all accounts, they have a good life.
But they worry about the world their children will inherit, and a society they believe has lost touch with its values and needs more religion to get it back on track. That's why Jennifer stays home. She's there to home school all her children, teaching them history, Bible stories and math.
"We study math because God created math and God loves math," she says in a CNN documentary to be broadcast this month.
Two weeks before it airs, the series is already coming under scrutiny from the U.S. Christian right.
The movement has been growing in strength and influence since Rev. Jerry Falwell started his Moral Majority organization in the late 1970s. Ronald Reagan solidified his grip on the White House with help from the religious right, but it was current President George W. Bush who made it a truly powerful force in American politics, openly espousing his fundamentalist beliefs and crediting religion for his success in life.
Criticism of the melding of religion and politics in the U.S. is not new, but until now it has come mostly from the sidelines.
Former Republican strategist Kevin Phillips released his book American Theocracy last year, warning a country is weakened when it allows religion to rule politics. But while the book did cause a bit of a stir when it was released, it preached mostly to the converted.
The CNN documentaries, however, bring a critical look at the Christian right – a label Falwell embraces in the documentary, which features the final interview before his death – into the mainstream.
"The fact that it's coming from CNN is very interesting," says University of Toronto politics professor David Rayside. It may indicate, he says, that the Christian right might be under more scrutiny from the mainstream media than before.
Certainly, the sex and drugs scandal involving prominent televangelist Ted Haggard last year and the unpopularity of the war in Iraq backed by the Christian right, have caused cracks in the power base of religious conservatives.
Few, however, are willing to write them off just yet.
"They will be very influential" in the coming election, Mark Nelson, head of documentaries at CNN, says in an interview from his office in Atlanta, Ga.
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On the campaign trail, those hoping to run for president next year still feel a need to espouse their religious beliefs, though there seems to have been something of a shift.
Democratic contender Barack Obama, for instance, has accused the Christian right of promoting hate and challenged its contention that strict Christian values are integral to American society.
"Whatever we once were, we're no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers," he wrote in a posting on the Christian Broadcast News website.
It's the kind of thing no politician would have dared to say in the U.S. not so long ago.
Even Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani has felt little need to pander to the Christian right, sticking by his pro-choice, pro gay marriage views – two issues that have been the primary focus of the Moral Majority throughout its history.
At least one Republican candidate for president worries the Christian right's influence is slipping.
Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee warned at a forum in June the Christian right risks becoming "irrelevant" if it doesn't stay focused on such issues as the sanctity of life and the traditional family.
Ironically, he says, success could be the Christian right's downfall.
"When we're no longer interested in making a difference, rattling the cage, rocking the boat and stirring things up and all we really want to do is just make sure we have a `seat at the table,' get invited to the nice parties and get on the best invitation lists, we become part of the problem," he said.
Rayside said no one should count out the religious right. "It's never going to be irrelevant, there's just too many religious conservatives in the United States." (see sidebar)
The Christian right controls the Republican party apparatus in many states, Rayside says, ensuring the movement remains a strong political force – even if the party itself shies away from pushing for another openly fundamentalist candidate for president like Bush.
The unpopularity of the current president makes things even muddier, Rayside says. An Associated Press poll last month found just one in three Americans think Bush is doing a good job – down from 90 per cent after the 9/11 attacks.
In such an atmosphere, Rayside says, anyone who reminds voters too much of Bush won't be popular.
But that doesn't mean conservative Christian voters have abandoned their values, he adds. They still oppose abortion and support the traditional family, and will scrutinize politicians' policies when it comes time to vote next year.
The focus, he says, will likely shift from supporting an openly fundamentalist candidate like Bush, who some on the Christian right think let them down anyway, to a candidate who espouses the same conservative values as them.
At CNN, Nelson says his crews, led by Iranian-born international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, got a clear picture of how the Christian right will try to change American society – with the ballot box.
He agrees that the next Republican candidate will likely not be as openly religious as Bush, but that anyone hoping to make it to the White House will have to pay attention to the issues important to the Christian right.
"It doesn't matter whether you're a born-again Christian or not. What really matters is how you come down on issues that are most important to their cause," he says. "We saw that throughout the documentary."
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