Michael Gerson: Introspection time for evangelicals

Christian conservatives are often the subject of study by academics, who seem to find their culture as foreign as that of Borneo tribesmen. And this is a particularly interesting time for brave social scientists to put on their pith helmets and head to Wheaton, Ill., or unexplored regions of the South. They will find communities under external and internal cultural stress.

It is fair to say some cultural views traditionally held by evangelicals are in retreat. Whatever the future of political libertarianism, moral libertarianism has been on the rise. This is perhaps the natural outworking of an enlightenment political philosophy that puts individual rights at its center. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy described this view as the right to define ones own concept of existence.

Traditional religious views involve a belief that existence comes pre-defined. Purpose is discovered, not exerted. And scripture and institutions a community of believers extended back in time are essential to that discovery. This is not the spirit of the age.

It was not really the spirit of any age. But many evangelicals believe it was, subscribing to the myth of a lost American Eden. There has certainly been a cultural shift in America on religion and public life. But it has largely been from congenial contradiction to less-sympathetic contradiction. There is more criticism of the veneer of Protestant spirituality in public places. There is also a growing belief that individual rights need to be protected, not only from the state but from religious institutions that dont share public values.

The reaction of evangelicals to these trends varies widely. They can accommodate to the prevailing culture, as many evangelicals have already done on issues such as contraception, divorce and the role of women. Or they can try to fight for their political and cultural place at the table, as other interest groups do.

A recent study, Sowing the Seeds of Discord, by a group of scholars associated with the Public Religion Research Institute, describes a mix of reactions. There is some evidence that younger evangelicals are more socially accepting of social outgroups, including gays and lesbians. But there is no evidence this shift is changing political allegiances. White evangelicals remain reliably and monolithically Republican.

My interpretation: Even as some evangelical cultural views change along with broader norms, the Democratic Party is still viewed as a hostile instrument of secularization.

But the most interesting finding of the study concerns where disaffection with conservative politics is developing among evangelicals. On a number of questions Should under God be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance? Does religion solve more social problems than it creates? evangelical millennials expressed more negative views on the social role of religion according to an unexpected pattern. Those who lack friends and ties outside evangelicalism are more critical of traditional evangelical views.

My interpretation: A desperate, angry, apocalyptic tone of social engagement alienates many people, including some of the children of those who practice it.

Conservative evangelicals are responding to a culture that does not always share their values. But a purely reactive model of politics is not attractive, even internally. And the problem is not only strategic but theological. A Christian vision of social engagement that is defined by resentment for lost social position and a scramble for group advantage is not particularly Christian.

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Michael Gerson: Introspection time for evangelicals