Paradoxes on the Christian Right
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As recently as the fall of 2000, some commentators were still predicting
or declaring the demise of the Christian Right-as usual with any and
every dip and downturn in the fortunes of the movement or its constituent
parts. But the pundits notwithstanding, the movement has consolidated,
stabilized, and is prepared to wage fresh battles. "Not only are the
culture wars not over, and not only have we not lost," declared Florida
televangelist D. James Kennedy in 1998, "but the fact is we are
winning!"4
Financial data provided by most of the major organizations of the Christian
Right to the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability (posted
on its web site
http://www.ecfa.org) provide
a snapshot of the scale and stability of the movement. In most cases
organizational income rises steadily over the three years listed. A
sampling of rounded income figures for 1999, the last year for which
there is data posted, shows: Concerned Women for America, $12 million;
Family Research Council, $14 million; American Family Association,
$15 million; Promise Keepers, $51 million; Regent University, $52 million;
Focus on the Family $121 million; Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting
Network, $196 million; Campus Crusade for Christ, $360 million. The
combined income of D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, and his
television and radio operation totaled $66 million. Interestingly,
in 2000, AOL founder Steve and his wife Jean Case, donated $8.35 million
to Jean Case's alma mater, Westminster Academy, a parochial school
adjunct of Coral Ridge Ministries.5 Of
course, not all of these organizations spend all or even most of their
resources on political action per se, but each is an integral component
of a still larger conservative Christian culture from which the Christian
Right political movement is sustained and refreshed.
Running counter to this trend, the Christian Coalition has been faced
with a steady turnover in senior staff and a dramatic drop in its budget
from a high of about $25 million in the mid-1990's to about half that
in 2000, among other signs of disarray. At the same time, it has sustained
a significant and high profile niche in public consciousness. Similarly,
Promise Keepers (PK), which at its peak filled dozens of football stadia
in spectacular expressions of the new conservative Christian culture,
has endured scandals, largely saturated its market, and declined in popularity
and budget, but nevertheless sustains a $50 million a year budget while
staging smaller scale events. After distributing tens of millions of
books, literature, videos, music CDs and other paraphernalia, PK remains
a powerful vehicle of conservative Christian cultural influence.
Additional paradoxes confound simple conclusions about the state of
the Christian Right. First, in 2000 the Christian Right substantially
subsumed itself to the electoral fortunes of George W. Bush (his sketchy
record on the litmus test issues of the Christian Right not withstanding)
as their best hope of ending the Clinton/Gore era. In the wake of this
pragmatic decision, some Christian rightists are becoming radicalized.
Second, the founding generation of the Christian Right is aging, and
the turnover at the top of the leading organizations of the movement
suggests potential instability among leading Christian Right institutions.
And finally, major changes in the ideology and composition of the leadership
of the Catholic Church will undoubtedly lead to an important shift in
the direction and impact of faith-based political activism. The rise
of conservative Catholicism may profoundly, if slowly, alter the dynamics
of the contemporary Christian Right, resulting in an era of increasing
political aggressiveness in electoral politics on the part of church-backed
rightist initiatives, particularly on the issue of abortion.
Christian Right leaders, followers and even organizations have come
and gone as the movement has evolved, but its religious and public policy
agenda remains essentially unchanged. Pat Robertson, still the most visible
and vocal Christian Right leader, declared during the 2000 election campaign "I
want to see a future where a religious public servant occupies the White
House and fills federal positions of power with men and women committed
to godly principles."6 Such
a government would at minimum seek to roll back liberal gains in such
things as, reproductive rights and gay and lesbian civil rights, and
lower, if not smash, the wall of separation between church and state.
The debates among the factions of the Christian Right are more over means
than ends.
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