BEA Panel Looks at Evangelicals and Politics

by Kimberly Winston, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 6/4/2008

Pollsters say evangelical Christians make up as much as a quarter of the electorate during a presidential election year, and they also make up the largest segment of the market for religion books. Given that and the surprises of this election process so far, PW hosted a panel on Saturday at BEA that looked at changes in American evangelicalism as November approaches.

"Evolving Evangelicals and the Presidential Election" featured four authors who have cast their eyes on evangelicals and politics: Randall Balmer, author of God in the White House (HarperOne, Jan.) Marcia Ford, author of We The Purple (Tyndale, Mar.), David Gushee, author of The Future of Faith in American Politics (Baylor University Press, Jan.) and Ron Sider, author of The Scandal of Evangelical Politics (Baker Academic, Feb.). It was moderated by PW's senior religion editor, Lynn Garrett.

Though the panelists came from different Christian and political perspectives, they agreed that American evangelicalism is undergoing profound changes, with older generations still mainly concerned with issues like abortion and same-sex unions, and younger ones focused on issues like poverty, health care and the environment. 

Balmer, a professor of religion and American history, said, "I think we are seeing an enervation of the Religious Right in politics. They will still make their voices heard, but not at the same level that we have seen in past years." Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics, called these younger evangelical voters "the new center" and said they have "shattered the hegemony of the Religious Right," predicting that the winning candidate will be the one who reaches evangelical voters with "a broad, holistic vision." He added, "I think it is really up for grabs in 2008 and that rhetoric about God is not what we are looking for in the center." Sider agreed, saying, "The evangelical vote is up for grabs in a way that it hasn't been in a while." 

Ford invited evangelical voters to become independents, as she is, to free themselves from conflicts between their faith and a party platform. Referring to a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., she said, "Maladjusted non-conformists will have an impact in changing societies, and that can be a metaphor for independents who have shed party connections and are free to be the people God wants them to be."