Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Religious right sees an opening Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 14:59:57 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \HD Religious right sees an opening \SH Clinton policies could swell rank \BY Larry Witham \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES The religious right, saying it is alive and well after helping give a defeated President Bush an overwhelming share of the evangelical vote, has become the post-election whipping boy for both parties. Some moderate Republicans say the religious activists gave the party an extremist image, and liberals are calling the Bush defeat a repudiation of the moral conservativism advocated by the movement. But while evangelicals continue their internal debate on how to approach politics, leaders of the religious right see their ranks swelling if the Clinton administration increases abortion and homosexual rights and intrudes government into the family. "Mr. Clinton didn't get the evangelical vote, he didn't get the traditional-values vote," said Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition. "It demonstrates the importance of evangelicals and pro-family Roman Catholics to the rebuilding of the winning Reagan coalition." A coalition exit poll showed Mr. Bush with 55 percent of the evangelical vote. Though without a presidential victory, leaders of the religious right say America still backs their social agenda, as in a Voter Research and Surveys exit poll that showed 68 percent want government to promote traditional family values. "The religious right is going to have a certain advantage in being the opposition [to the Democratic White House]," said James Guth, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C. After the Clinton victory, the Rev. Jerry Falwell said he received "a tremendous amount of contact" about reviving the Moral Majority. Prominent evangelical leaders have preached national repentance. A former three-time Southern Baptist Convention president, the Rev. Adrian Rodgers, told his 23,000-member Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, Tenn., that Clinton votes were a "sin against God." In his nationally televised "Choral Ridge Hour," Presbyterian Rev. James Kennedy of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the nation's vote for money rather than morality might earn it "the judgment of God." But some within the party worry that the religious right is narrowing the Republican coalition's embrace and creating intolerance within. Such critics cite problems such as the strict pro-life plank in the Republican Party platform and prominence of religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, and conservative Catholic commentator Pat Buchanan at the party convention. "We are being excluded," said Ken Ruberg, executive director of the Republican Mainstream Committee in Washington. "No Republican likes to be told they are not a Christian because they are Episcopalian and have different policy views." "If you try to be all things to all men then we will become nothing to nobody," counters Ed McAteer, president of the Religious Roundtable in Memphis. "If we do not stake out our positions, how can we rally the people?" Mr. McAteer, who organized 40 speakers from the religious right at the National Affairs Briefing in Dallas this fall, expects a more diverse grass-roots movement than the 1980s. "They are not saying let's start a new Moral Majority or get a new Jerry Falwell," Mr. McAteer said. "But let's do something. We don't need a high-profile leader. The target's too big." With a high-profile target, he said, the media will make the movement a caricature. "The media's had this in their craw a long time now," Mr. McAteer said. But a number of prominent evangelicals say the religious right does indeed have an image problem and must revise its methods to broaden its base of supporters. "The Christian right is revving up the tanks on the wrong battlefield," Don Eberly, an evangelical who is president of the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank in Harrisburg, Pa., wrote to Mr. Robertson in late September. The letter, circulated in conservative circles, warned Mr. Robertson that the Christian Coalition was polarizing conservatives and creating a "backlash" in some American communities. "We should attempt to restore religion's legitimate role in the realm of culture, and articulate in our politics a vision for the common good that goes beyond a simplistic Christian moral agenda," Mr. Eberly said. He added: "We can't restore values when virtually all attempts to do so are identified with ideological or religious politics." Likewise, evangelicals such as former Nixon aide Charles Colson and the Rev. Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., recently have written books cautioning against the "us and them" rhetoric and "triumphalism" of Christian politicking. Yet the election-eve cover story of the largest mainstream evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, was, "In Reluctant Praise of Extremism." It said that just as extremist abolitionists forced out slavery, pro-life extremists may be neccessary to roll back abortion. Lyman Kellstedt, a political science professor at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, said the Christian Coalition is learning to broaden its appeal. "It's a matter of bridging to regular mainstream evangelicals," he said. Mr. Ruberg said that at most Republican meetings in the next few months, "the role of the religious right will be foremost on the agenda." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM