Evangelicalism and the Decline of American Politics

This 2017 study by Jan G. Linn offers a history of evangelicalism in American politics since Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979 and a theory of why the influence of evangelicalism has been so destructive to our political process. 

It could be fairly stated that Jerry Falwell is the man who put Lynchburg, Virginia, where Jan and I were both born, on the national map.  Jan grew up in Falwell’s neighborhood.  At one point I lived in the same neighborhood as Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church.  So, as Jan says in the prologue to his book, “This is Personal.”

Jan Linn graduated from E. C. Glass High School in Lynchburg in 1963, the year before I did.  I knew who he was because he was a well-known football player for the E. C. Glass Hilltoppers (Lynchburg is known as the “City of Seven Hills” or the “Hill City”).  I did not know him personally, but in my junior year I sat diagonally behind him in Mr. Racer’s Economics class.  Mr. Racer was a Republican who often railed against President John F. Kennedy in class.  Jan would raise his hand and argue with Mr. Racer. I can’t remember now the substance of those arguments, but I was struck that he would speak up and challenge the teacher.  Though I never personally said anything, as the daughter of a staunch Democratic father, I secretly admired and sympathized with Jan, even though I didn’t necessarily understand the issues being debated. 

As Jan recounts in the book, he was raised as an evangelical himself, and he went on to become a Disciples of Christ minister.  I also was raised as an evangelical (though I went to a different church) and went on to become a college English professor and a Unitarian Universalist.  Somehow Jan and I both ended up in Minnesota.  He founded a ministry near the Twin Cities and I taught at St. Cloud State University (about an hour or so away from Minneapolis) for almost 30 years.  It wasn’t until we were both retired that a fellow E. C. Glass classmate put us in touch with each other.  Since then we’ve met a couple of times with our spouses and enjoyed some good conversations about growing up in Lynchburg, religion, politics, and, of course, Jerry Falwell.

This is the second of his books I’ve read.  It is well-researched and documented, well-argued, and well-written with clarity, sharp intellect, and passion.  See his publication record here: https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/jan-g-linn/583872/ Jan also regularly comments on religion and politics in his blog: https://linnposts.com/

Evangelicalism and the Decline of American Politics, not only provides a history of the evangelical movement that Jerry Falwell started, but also an overview of different definitions of evangelicalism, an analysis of our current political dysfunction, and a theory of how evangelicalism, or what Jan calls “partisan evangelicalism,” has contributed to that dysfunction. 

In short, conservative evangelicals hold fast to a rigid Bible-based, authoritarian world-view, based on divine command, which cannot be questioned or compromised without falling into iniquity.  The Bible is their supreme source of knowledge; any other source of knowledge, such as science or rational thought, is flawed by human imperfection.  Whenever any other source of knowledge, no matter how fact-based, empirically supported, or logical, contradicts the Bible, it is dismissed as misguided.  There simply is no room for compromise or critical thinking.  Bible-based beliefs are absolute.  When this kind of absolutism finds its way into politics, then all hope of conclusions and solutions democratically arrived at by a diverse populace of different religions, philosophies, and world-views is completely lost.  For partisan, conservative evangelicals, a deal with a non-evangelical is a deal with the devil.  Thus, we have obstructionism, stalemate, and a break-down of democratic civic processes of decision-making and problem-solving. 

Ironically, this kind of narrow, rigid evangelicalism is not shared by the majority of Americans.  There are liberal Christian evangelicals such as the followers of Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine, non-evangelical Christians, believers in other religions, believers in no religion, all of whom are American citizens with voting rights.  However, the conservative evangelicals, who don’t necessarily believe in separation of church and state and who place the Bible above the Constitution, have strategically taken over some of our political institutions, both locally, statewide, and nationally.  The Republican party can hardly make a move without approval from its evangelical base. 

Jan calls for a return of evangelicalism to the tradition of Christian scholarship, the message of the Bible (as opposed to literal absolutism), the Christian contemplative tradition, spiritual humility, and the words of Jesus Christ to love our neighbors and even our enemies.

As one sees today the twisted ways in which evangelical voters defend the likes of Donald Trump, there seems little room for hope that such a return can happen.  Perhaps the evangelical mind-set will have to be out-numbered and out-voted by the reasonable Moderate Majority as opposed to the absolutist Moral Majority.

Meanwhile, it is gratifying to know that Lynchburg, Virginia, produced an intelligent, sensible, humane Christian, who believes in the Constitution and separation of church and state as well as the Bible and the Christian message.