Christian Right Losing Its Relevance?

Photo from original source, Raw Story

I haven't much use for religion in general. But I'm not very rabid about it. I figure, if your religion works for you, OK by me. But as the adage goes, your rights to swing your fist end at the tip of my nose. When religion gets hostile, and takes a swipe at me, I'll swipe back.

That's why this story sparked my interest. I've watched "Christian Right" grow in power and influence since I was a little boy in the 70s. I knew something wasn't right about it back then. I remember an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, where an evangelical Jerry Falwell type was trying to censor music on the station. My reaction to it then was to side with Doctor Johnny Fever, and I still do!

But it's the mixing of politics and religion that really galls me. This country was founded on the idea of religious freedom--both freedom OF it, and freedom FROM it. We've ignored this many times and in many laws (Sunday "blue" laws, for example), but it has been mostly in the last 30 years have we seen evangelical Christianity purposefully infiltrating government, and trying to pass their beliefs into law. What was it, 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's Regent University in the Bush Administration? So yeah, this story makes me happy.

[Excerpt]

The Evangelical Crackup

. . .Just three years ago, the leaders of the conservative Christian political movement could almost see the Promised Land. White evangelical Protestants looked like perhaps the most potent voting bloc in America. They turned out for President George W. Bush in record numbers, supporting him for re-election by a ratio of four to one. Republican strategists predicted that religious traditionalists would help bring about an era of dominance for their party. Spokesmen for the Christian conservative movement warned of the wrath of “values voters.” James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, was poised to play kingmaker in 2008, at least in the Republican primary. And thanks to President Bush, the Supreme Court appeared just one vote away from answering the prayers of evangelical activists by overturning Roe v. Wade.

Today the movement shows signs of coming apart beneath its leaders. It is not merely that none of the 2008 Republican front-runners come close to measuring up to President Bush in the eyes of the evangelical faithful, although it would be hard to find a cast of characters more ill fit for those shoes: a lapsed-Catholic big-city mayor; a Massachusetts Mormon; a church-skipping Hollywood character actor; and a political renegade known for crossing swords with the Rev. Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Nor is the problem simply that the Democratic presidential front-runners — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards — sound like a bunch of tent-revival Bible thumpers compared with the Republicans. . .

Read the whole article at: New York Times Magazine