The Evangelical and the Democrat Can Be Friends
December 01, 2004
William J. Stuntz, an (ex?) “Evangelical” and Professor at Harvard Law School, thinks “there is a large, latent pro-redistribution evangelical vote, ready to get behind the first politician to tap into it. (Barack Obama, are you listening?).” Opines the Professor, “These men and women vote Republican not because they like the party’s policy toward poverty – cut taxes and hope for the best – but because poverty isn’t on the table anymore. In evangelical churches, elections are mostly about abortion. Neither party seems much concerned with giving a hand to those who most need it.”
If the Democrats would just lean further to the left and return to statist social welfare agendas… indeed, that is the ticket. This sort of thinking ought to be encouraged. Hillary and Obama is the way to go! And if this is their official campaign music, they are a shoe-in in 2008.
Yet, in all seriousness, there is probably more than a grain of truth to the Professor’s view of Evangelicals, who consistently lack the deeper insight and cultural resources on “values” issues that would fortify them against the temptation of the liberal statist salvation gospel and press them to define an authentic conservatism, or simply a politics of truth and justice, which is not on offer in any political party today. As The Howard Center notes in “The End of Religion, The End of Society:”
“The Democrats favor abortion, up to and including late term abortions. This means that they agree in principle with the elimination of 42 million unborn Americans in the past 31 years. The Republicans oppose abortion, but they do not speak out, and they certainly will not say that. If those 42 million babies had been born, many things would look different in the U.S. economic picture, not least the fact that there would be enough workers in and entering the work force to solve much of the looming problems in Social Security funding. Why won’t the Republicans say it? Are they half-hearted, or perhaps half-witted, or just timid?”
This is The Evangelical and the Democrat Can Be Friends in The Japery, a part of The New Pantagruel. Previously: Don’t Get Religion | Next: Alternative Conservatisms | TrackBack (0) | Comments (0)
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