The Protestant right gets down to political fundamentals
When he was nine years old, John B. Anderson knelt at an Illinois tent revival and committed his life to Jesus. During 19 years in Congress he has been one of the most articulate Evangelicals in politics. Jimmy Carter's well-publicized faith made "born again" a famous phrase. And Ronald Reagan? In February he told a TV interviewer that he is born again, too, but seemed shaky about the Evangelical concept of personal belief, concluding, "I suppose I would qualify."
Obviously Fundamentalists and Evangelicals who want to mix religion and politics would favor Carter or Anderson, right? Wrong. The most vocal ones, at least, find Reagan's conservatism almost irresistible. Says Richard Zone, executive director of a new political lobby called Christian Voice: "Reagan is not the best Christian that ever walked the face of the earth, but we really don't have a choice." His group slaps Anderson with a zero rating on 14 key "moral" issues, among them abortion, school prayer, a balanced budget and strong national defense. Christian Voice regards Carter as a "good man" but "naive" and with dreaded liberal tendencies. Ted Kennedy is unthinkable. But the once divorced and remarried movie actor checks out fine.
Religion in politics is no novelty in America. Hardly an eyebrow was raised when the national head of Reform Judaism endorsed Senator Kennedy even before the primaries. But Protestant Evangelicals have generally judged politics to be the devil's playground. This year they are plunging in, too, borrowing methods and single-issue zeal that religious and secular liberals have applied to racial equality, women's rights, the environment and the Viet Nam War. Their booming religious TV and radio circuit provides a "bully" pulpit for exploring moral issues. The effect on a close presidential race could be crucial.
There are 31 million Evangelicals of voting age, whose ranks include all political views. Today a quartet of interlocking groups urged on by secular New Right activists is busily at work, interviewing presidential candidates and hoping to register millions of inactive churchgoers, deliver votes on a national and local level and provide chosen candidates with campaign workers and cash. The four:
Christian Voice. Zone, 30, and other California pastors got their political start by rallying behind a 1978 state referendum to bar openly homosexual schoolteachers. Since going national last year they have broadened their targets to include school busing and the Panama Canal treaty McAteer (against), Taiwan security and prosecution of welfare deadbeats (for). Three U.S. Senators and eleven Congressmen form an advisory committee. In its first year, the group claims to have enlisted 187,000 supporters, a fifth of them clergy, and it plans to spend $3 million in 1980. Voice has no tax exemption so it can be openly political. Campaign flyers will go to 5 million people. Supporters are currently being mailed "morality" voting records on all Congressmen and a "hit list" of undesirable incumbents. A subsidiary, Christians for Reagan, has earmarked $1 million to be spent urging votes for Reagan if it decides he needs it.*