The Irony of Evangelical Political Growth

Religious influence in politics is nothing new, either in world or American history. In fact, despite the demarcation our Constitution seeks to ensure, there has been a necessary, if uncomfortable, symbiosis between the two. Religion has, at times, been the voice of progress in a sluggish nation, as with the Civil Rights Movement. Religion has at other times been the voice of caution amid a world of uncertainty and violent change, such as in WWII and the Cold War.

Today, the dance has become more entangled and fevered. Nary a day passes without news of an assault by religion onto politics, or politics onto religion, depending upon your perspective. Yet, what makes the interactions between the two so unsettling today is that they seem to indicate something far greater. Something is going on. Skirmish after skirmish lend light to the fact that we are in the middle of something much bigger than ourselves.

Evangelical Christianity, the ubiquitous political voice, wants to tell our country that we are in a war over God. Preferring theocracy to democracy, or at least a church-driven state to the moral morass they believe our one-voice-one-vote system has birthed, evangelical Christianity has galvanized itself, creating a smooth-operating and many-tentacled organism that is powerfully steering the present and future of American politics.

Left-of-center folks scoff at the very mention of a God-war, desiring instead to keep their eye on the political ball. Naively believing that today's politics are just about politics, liberals and left-leaning moderates denounce all talk of God in political conversation.