Evangelical Protestantism in the United States is going through a New Reformation that is disentangling a great religious movement from a partisan political machine. This historic change will require liberals and conservatives alike to abandon their sometimes narrow views of who evangelicals are.(emphasis added)
There has been an "awakening" of sorts among liberals to what has come to be called "Dominionist" rhetoric among the Christian Right - I had never heard the term, and I am still unclear as to what it means (although I am sure someone will tell me) - as if it were something new. I happen to have a book (is that surprising?) called The Farther Shores of American Politics, detailing both the left and right fringes. The book, published in 1972, has an entire chapter dedicated to the Christian Right, and names that appear there, including Billy James Hargis (he of Campus Crusade for Christ fame), are among those who also were among the early movers and shakers in the late 1970's as the Christian Right awoke from its long slumber (most scholars date its retreat from public life to the Scopes' Monkey Trial). Much of the rhetoric, many of the goals, indeed even the tactics of the movement as it became more "mainstream" remained unchanged from its days as a marginalized, fringe movement through the 1950's and 1960's. In fact, reading the chapter today shows how little has changed, at least among the old guard - those who tried to unseat Cizik from his position as policy director from the NAE.
As the NAE changes, recognizing the reality that evangelicals have a devotion to issues that transcend the "traditional" ones of abortion and gay rights, the screeching one hears is as much the cry of those who know their time in power is just about up as it is a serious debate over the direction evangelicals should take in pursuing their public charge. Noting that neither Cizik nor the NAE have abandoned their pro-life position, but in fact are seeing their pro-life position as encompassing much more than "protecting the unborn" (something many have been saying for two decades, but that is another matter). They are placing their public position within a much broader context, which Cizik calls "creation care". The name is neither here nor there; it is the fact that a new generation of evangelicals sees itself as committed less to transforming American society and culture than to working within traditional political structures for specific policy goals that have both broad public support as well as are consistent with their rhetoric in favor of life.
Evangelicals are a complicated lot, and some who are lumped in with them are not nor have ever been true "evangelicals" as historians of Christianity understand the term. The recognition that there is something uniquely evangelical about the pursuit of an agenda that expands beyond very narrow partisan ones opens up the movement to a broader public, and offers opportunities for coalitions that transcend heretofore traditional ideas of what is conservative and what is liberal.
These changes are welcome and long overdue. I find the sudden furrowing of brows over "Dominionist" rhetoric quite funny, because it has been there all along, and at the very moment the evangelical movement is changing, and the more strident elements of it are becoming marginalized, there is this sudden fear of "theocracy". I can only say to this, "Hogwash". The reality is much more interesting, and for progressives opens up all sorts of opportunities for coalitions to move the country in interesting directions, provided we recognize that such coalitions are over issues, and we not try to create a Democratic version of what has been the Republican indenture of the Christian Right for a generation.
