Evangelical Leader Preaches Pullback From Politics, Culture Wars

Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention says it is time for evangelicals to tone down the rhetoric.

For years, as the principal public voice for the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's biggest evangelical group, Richard Land warned of a "radical homosexual agenda" and pushed for a federal ban on same-sex marriage.

His successor, Russell Moore, sounded a different note when the Supreme Court in June struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. "Love your gay and lesbian neighbors," Mr. Moore wrote in a flier, "How Should Your Church Respond," sent to the convention's estimated 45,000 churches. "They aren't part of an evil conspiracy." Marriage, he added, was a bond between a man and a woman, but shouldn't be seen as a "'culture war' political issue."

Since the birth of the Christian-conservative political movement in the late 1970s, no evangelical group has delivered more punch in America's culture wars than the Southern Baptist Convention and its nearly 16 million members. The country's largest Protestant denomination pushed to end abortion, open up prayer in public schools and boycott Walt Disney Co. over films deemed antifamily. Its ranks included many of the biggest names on the Christian right, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Today, after more than three decades of activism, many in the religious right are stepping back from the front lines. Mr. Moore, a 42-year-old political independent and theologian who heads the convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, says it is time to tone down the rhetoric and pull back from the political fray, given what he calls a "visceral recoil" among younger evangelicals to the culture wars.

In 1984 the Democrats nominated Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro to counter President Reagan's bid for a second term.

Mondale was obviously a Socialist, and it finally became clear also that the revolution begun by the Old New Left decades earlier in that Party had triumphed.

Mondale and his running mate immediately made their position on Christians being "involved in politics" very clear. They actually, and blatantly, argued that Christians were "violating the separation of Church and State," supporting the ridiculous notion that Jefferson's doctrine was instituted to protect the State from the Church, not the other way around.

It finally dawned on some that we were supporting the wrong Party, which left us in a quandary.

We couldn't support Republicans, could we? Like today, there wasn't much of a counter to Mondale and Ferraro's hostility coming from the Republicans, except among a few columnists, here and there. Democrats made it clear Christians were unwelcome, and no one in the Legacy Media challenged this odd position.

Finally, after a long hot summer, Ronald Reagan came to Dallas and spoke to the traditional Prayer Breakfast a day before the Republican Convention began there in late August. I just happened to catch his speech live on television that morning, over my first cup of coffee ahead of another long day of work only 80 miles away.

I decided to listen.

I was recently surprised to learn President Reagan's speech that morning nearly 30 years ago has since been ranked somewhere among the "100 Most Influential in American history."

Well along into the President's remarks he said, "Religion and politics are, of necessity, related."

The scales fell from my eyes, as he used to say. Clearly, I finally realized, I was in the wrong Party.

This is what Republicans believe?

It was almost a tentative statement Reagan offered, but it very effectively countered the strident and obviously anti-Christian position touted by the Democrat's top dogs.

That simple speech, after President Reagan was re-elected so decisively the following November, led to years of study of Conservatism, of Buckley, Burnham, and many, many other writers familiar to participants in the FreeRepublic forum.

In the context of the whole panoply of American history the idea that Christians should retire from American politics is totally counter to the nation's moral good, rejecting the good for the sake of the perfect. It's a certain pathway for the "triumph of evil persons."

Voting, and "voting" as a metaphor for all Christian participation in American politics, is no "privilege." It is a responsibility, ideally much like sitting on a jury. It requires tough decisions, resolving "reasonable doubt," and we must live and be responsible for the outcome. Those who can't handle this responsibility probably sit it out, leaving these choices up to those who make a responsible effort to keep as informed as possible at least for the purpose of making those tough decisions.

Barack Obama being elected to the presidency is a tribute to the present weakness of the Republican party, and the Republican Party's weakness is a direct result of Christian Americans turning away from their responsibilities as American Citizens, weakening their own franchise and the structure of the American "composite republic" that would not have existed without Christianity nor maintained without a sufficient Christian moral base, finally allowing greedy, weak-minded consultants and their guilds to foist their own interests over the interests of our neighbors.

"Then Amalek came and fought against Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose men for us and go out, fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought against Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. So it came about when Moses held his hand up, that Israel prevailed, and when he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands were heavy. Then they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it; and Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sun set. So Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword."

- Exodus 17:8-13 (NASB).

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