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POLITICS AND RELIGION

Traditional Involvement

At the beginning of the 1970s religious leaders active in politics came mostly from the Left. Mainline Protestant ministers and Roman Catholic priests opposed the war in Vietnam and supported government action to alleviate the problems of race and poverty at home. The scandal of Watergate and Richard Nixon's political disgrace tainted even the respected Billy Graham, who had openly supported his old friend's election bids and had performed religious services in the White House, as well as invited the president to his crusades and Billy Graham Day in Charlotte, North Carolina. Although Graham had distanced himself from Nixon after 1973, he insisted after the Watergate revelations that he was deeply troubled by his failure to know the darker aspects of Nixon's personality and actions. Apparently Nixon's use of foul language in private was most disturbing to Graham.

Rise of the Conservatives

By the end of the decade religious liberals seemed weak, and activists came from the Right as conservative Protestants and Mormons, with support from the Roman Catholic hierarchy, organized to overturn the Supreme Court's abortion decision in Roe V. Wade, oppose the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and inhibit the growth of the gay rights movement. Some, mostly Protestants, continued this culture war to demand an end to sex education in the schools and require the teaching of what they called "Creation Science" in the schools to balance the teaching of evolution.

Jimmy Carter

The shift of political activism from Left to Right, from Mainline religious liberals to religious and cultural conservatives, became apparent in the election of 1976, when the former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for the presidency and then the election. Observers were astonished when Carter, a Southern Baptist, identified himself as born-again, meaning that he had not only accepted Jesus as his Savior but had also had an experience that convinced him that Jesus had accepted his conversion.

Admission of Adultery

It was easy for urban elites to dismiss Carter's candidacy as well as his religion at the beginning of the campaign. When Carter said in an interview published in Playboy magazine that he had committed adultery because he had looked at women with lust in his heart, many were astounded. That Carter had a sister who was a prominent faith healer was equally bemusing. Carter's election and the revelation that 40 percent of Americans identified themselves as born-again Christians forced many Americans, especially Northeastern urbanites and members of Mainline churches, to reconsider their understanding of the nation and its culture.

Carter's Seeming Contradictions

Despite Carter's religious convictions, the president's support for the ERA and his failure to oppose abortion, check the onslaught of pornography, or repress the increasingly assertive homosexual community offended cultural conservatives. Foreign-policy conservatives were offended by Carter's interjection of human-rights issues into a world dominated by the Cold War, his unwillingness to share their view of the enormity of the Soviet threat until the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and his failure to free the hostages seized by Iranian radicals.

Religious Round Table

The sharp political and cultural divisions of the nation and the chaotic economic situation created by the costs of the Vietnam War and the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 created a situation for a possible alignment of political and religious conservatives. In 1976 Paul Weyrich organized the Christian Voice, a self-proclaimed conservative body that rated politicians on the religious value of their political actions. In 1979 other religious conservatives created other political action groups, including the Religious Round Table, made up of a variety of conservative religious leaders. The most vigorous and best known of the religious-political groups was Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, organized in 1979 to voice right-wing views during the upcoming presidential election. The Moral Majority aimed to bring together those people who were pro-life, pro-traditional family, pro-moral, and pro-American, which was defined as supporting a strong national defense and full support for the Jewish state of Israel. A part of the group's constituency was those people whose cars bore the bumper sticker reading "God Spoke It. The Bible Declares It. I Believe It. That Settles It." As Ronald Reagan readied himself for the presidential election of 1980, he found allies in the evangelical religious communities who were socially and culturally distant from the traditional Republican base. His political success in the presidential campaign of 1980 depended on bringing these groups together into a new political coalition.