American Great Awakening
Back in the late 1980s, I had a conversation with Molly Ivins about the religious right. I think they were calling themselves the Moral Majority then, doublespeak for being neither. At that time, about 90% of Americans identified as religious, and conservatives and liberals were each hovering in the 40% range with the rest of the population in the middle.
Molly and I mused about the boom and bust cycle of evangelical religious “awakenings” in U.S. history, which started with big surges followed by a disaffected generation of children seeking refuge in liberal religion or secularism. Molly commented that, if the usual trends applied, the decline of the religious right would start during the Reagan years. However, she thought the decline would be delayed until after 2001 by an artificial high from the once-in-a-millennium turn of the calendar and all the religious fervor and hoping for rapture it would generate.
Turns out she was largely right about the timing. However, the surge of the religious right has also had long legs partly because it was aided by right wing corporate money, which created five think tanks to move American religion rightward. Protestant and Catholic opposition to the Contra wars had done some damage to Reagan’s Central America policies, and conservatives were furious. In 1983, “60 Minutes” depicted the moderate to liberal World Council of Churches and National Council of Churches as communist fronts, one of the worst pieces of propaganda I have ever seen passing itself off as journalism. The Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD), one of the think tanks begun in the Reagan years, had a mission to move mainline Protestants hard right or eviscerate them.
In addition to the think tanks, evangelicals recruited on college campuses. As of 2005, Campus Crusade, InterVarsity, and a couple of other smaller groups were spending around $700 million per year on higher education. At the same time, the largest mainline Protestant campus ministry program—and one of the few with a serious program—was the United Methodists’, which spent $20 million a year.
The surge is over, even among people who self-identify as evangelicals. Eighty percent of evangelicals under 30 think their elders are too negative toward gays and are more interested in addressing climate change and poverty. A majority of 58% support either marriage or civil unions, which is close to the national polls numbers of 66%. In 2007, even the stodgy National Evangelical Association sidelined their flagship “pelvic issues,” like abortion and gay marriage, and turned to poverty, torture, and climate change, despite a plea from the IRD not to do so. Evangelical leaders like David Gushee, Ron Sider, and Rich Cizik have been pushing forward on this new focus. Lisa Sharon Harper, Director of New York Faith and Justice, gives an inside picture of how younger evangelicals are moving in progressive directions on women and race in Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…Or Democrat.. In addition, a loose affiliation of folks calling themselves “emerging church,” alienated from megachurches, “institutional religion,” and conservative evangelicals, have been experimenting with alternative modes of being Christian and social change agents.
If you believe the media reporting on religion, however, the vast majority of Christians are right wingers. Media Matters issued a report in 2007 about the slant toward the right. While the majority of religious people are moderate to liberal, media interviews used conservative religious leaders 2.8 times more often—on TV that number is 3.8. As the report notes:
This represents a particularly meaningful distortion since progressive religious leaders tend to focus on different issues and offer an entirely different perspective than their conservative counterparts… More than eight in 10 Americans, consistently across virtually every religious tradition, agree that too many leaders use religion to talk about abortion and gay rights, but don’t talk about more important things like loving your neighbor and caring for the poor. This is particularly notable in a country with higher rates of religious observance than nearly any other industrialized nation.
Part of the problem is media ignorance. When I agreed in 1994 to appear on Nightline to defend Christian feminists against an IRD attack, the producer seemed to think the argument was about biblical authority, a nineteenth century question. I had to explain that this would be like asking physicists to debate black holes by arguing Newton’s theories. The show ultimately framed the debate around the question “Is God a Man?” The IRD reporter I debated repeatedly insisted, “You can’t change God!” No reputable theologian would argue God has a penis, but evidently a male God was important to her. The framing kept the focus off the 30 years of feminist work to dismantle misogyny and sexism in the church. While it is true that among some Christian groups, most notably the Southern Baptists and Catholics, you don’t have to be like Jesus to be ordained, you just have to pee like Jesus, Christian feminists have moved well beyond just undermining the idolatry of masculinity.
When media representatives do not understand the ways progressive religious people frame issues, they fail to challenge conservative representatives with astute questions. They also often treat religious leaders with an unwarranted deference, even when it is clear their hallowed knowledge wouldn’t fill a thimble.
On Nov. 28, 2004, an appallingly memorable episode of Meet the Press featured the anti-choice trinity of Revs. Jerry Falwell, Richard Land, and Jim Wallis discussing abortion. The only pro-choice representative was Rev. Al Sharpton. If they wanted a black male minister, they could have included Rev. Carlton Veasey, head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which represents a huge swath of religious groups with official pro-choice positions. Not a single woman spoke for either side.
Another striking aspect of the Media Matters report is the list of progressive Christians who dominate media interviews, nine men and only one woman, a nun, which appears to be the only female religious leadership journalists can imagine. I wonder about some of the names listed under “progressive” in the report. For example, Jim Wallis, who seems to function these days as the head of the Democrats’ version of the Christian Coalition, is the most frequently called on to represent progressive Christians. However, he is not pro-choice, ignores feminist issues, is silent about gays and lesbians, and offers pious paternalistic solutions to social issues like poverty. He is hardly a progressive Christian; he can only be called a progressive evangelical, compared to the likes of Warren, Jakes, and Olsteen. And there are even better progressive evangelicals—I met a whole slew this summer when I led Bible study at the annual gathering of the Baptist Peace Fellowship.
Slanted media reporting is bad for the country. As Media Matters notes: “Religious coverage as it exists today does a disservice to the public … the distorted picture allows a vocal minority to exercise an outsized influence on the issues and politicians that shape the direction of the country.” The Obama administration is a case in point. The majority of religious leaders appointed to his Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships are Christian men and anti-choice, like Wallis, whereas the majority of the country supports legal access to abortion and churches are full of women. Like Obama’s efforts to create bi-partisan health care reform, which watered it down horribly, his religious initiatives have skewed far more rightward than the country is, which is also what the media presents.
The media slant toward the right still holds. It’s time it changed.
you are absolutely right about the distorted media coverage, Rita. During the prop 8 discussions in California, the California Council of Churches strongly came out against it, but your never heard anything about that in the media. The Episcopal bishop of California offered to go on Larry King to explain why Christians think prop 8 is a bad idea, but never got an invitation. Over and over again, moderate and progressive Christians are ignored. I don’t get it. And I am VERY disappointed by the President’s Council. What is he thinking???
While the demographics suggest hope for change in the hearts of the people, I am doubtful for a shift toward balance in media coverage of predominately white, christian religion in America. Right wing religion is most newsworthy at its radical fringes. Tea party pseudo-politico-religiosity and the hateful disinformation and drama that emanate from it–that is what grabs attention, if not imagination. Cynical? Yes, but I hope I am dead wrong.
When the UCC voted for clergy to be able to marry same-sex couples, the discussion and diversionary tactics dragged on and on, but the vote for was easily 80%. Talk about a vocal minority.
I agree that high drama is what makes the news. The frozen chosen need to figure out how to generate some heat on the topics that matter to them.
The California Council of Churches, the Unitarian Universalists, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, Reformed Jews, etc. etc. filed amicus briefs in support of the legal challenge to Prop 8. The mass of religious groups that opposed it was a nonstory as far as media coverage went.
I think athe media reports on the religious right, not because they like them, but because it is easy to poke fun at some of their outrageous statements. Jerry Falwell blaming feminists, gays, etc. for 9/11 got a lot more airtime than James Forbes leading his members at Riverside in helping the rescuers at Ground Zero and praying for peace instead of retribution.