The Christian Right in Virginia: A Mixed Blessing for Civil Society
Clyde Wilcox
Georgetown University
In September, 1999, the Christian Right in Virginia was a vibrant social movement, with substantial influence in the Republican party, in state and local government, and in school boards across the state. A movement candidate had been elected as state attorney general in 1997; he won the endorsement of the Washington Post and ran ahead of the rest of the GOP ticket. He is the likely Republican candidate for governor in 2001. The Christian Right stands poised to possibly help the GOP capture control of the state legislature in November, making the state the first in the South since Reconstruction to have all elected branches of government controlled by the Republican party. As the movement stands ready to exert influence on state policymaking, it is useful to assess the role of the Christian Right in Virginia’s civil society.
There is consensus that earlier 20th century social movements created social capital and made positive contribution to civil society. The labor movement early in the 20th century, and the civil rights, feminist, and gay and lesbian rights movements in the 1960s and 1970s mobilized new cadres of citizens into politics, taught them new political skills, expanded the political debate by raising important fairness issues, helped represent the interests of disadvantaged groups, and increased the circulation of political elites.
There is considerable debate, however, about the impact of the Christian Right on Virginia, and US society. The movement has done most of the positive things of those earlier movements, but some charge that the movement has sought to limit the rights of women and of gays and lesbians, and that it threatens the civil liberties of all Americans. Many Virginians fear the Christian Right, and believe that the movement stirs up hatred and anger instead of contributing to public deliberation on social issues.
As Warren (2001) has argued, voluntary associations including social movements may make varied contributions to democracy, and many groups may produce both positive and negative effects. The Christian Right has helped its members develop some of their democratic skills, and has represented its members in policy debates in the public sphere. Yet the contribution of the movement to public deliberation is less obvious, and in some areas the Christian Right may have had a negative impact. To assess the impact of the movement, we must first understand precisely what the movement is, and what it is not.
Understanding the Christian Right
The Christian Right is best thought of as a social movement in the process of institutionalization.[1] The movement seeks to mobilize conservative Christians, especially evangelical Protestants, into political action. Although the movement is located in the interstitial zone between religion and politics, it is best thought of as a social and political movement that has strength in churches and religious traditions – not as a religious movement with political goals. The movement itself has several competing social movement organizations, each with different ideological and political niches; in Virginia some of these organizations have had a more positive effect on democracy than others.
National organizations such as the Christian Coalition and Concerned Women for America have chapters in Virginia, and there are other “home grown” state organizations, and still others that exist only at the local level. There are countless local groups in Virginia, existing in one county or town, focused on one or two issues generally relating to schools or public libraries.
In addition to local organizations, there are a number of local unorganized networks – women’s prayer groups that are sometimes mobilized into politics, fax and e-mail chains of concerned citizens who communicate with a few friends who communicate with other friends. These informal networks constitute a significant portion of Christian Right activity at the local level, and are also highly effective communication channels for the movement.
Finally, there are many churches that are informally associated with the Christian Right. The nature of this relationship varies. In some cases pastors are active in the Christian Right groups; they bring in Republican candidates to speak from the pulpit, and allow church property to be used as meeting places for political activity. In other cases a core group of church members is active in Christian Right, and these members try to convince their fellow congregants to support the movement or its candidates. In some cases only a few members may be active, but they may distribute voter guides and other materials in or immediately outside the church. These churches are an important resource for the movement, providing leadership, organizational space, regular communication channels, and infrastructure.
These various associations within the movement undertake activities that might be expected to have differing impacts on democracy. The Christian Coalition’s niche has been to mobilize voters in GOP intra-party contests and in general elections. It distributes voter guides that contain much information and misinformation into local churches. In contrast, the Family Foundation lobbies state government over policies in schools, taxes, and social issues. It has developed many small units in churches throughout the state to begin to use the infrastructure of those institutions to influence politics. The Concerned Women for America (CWA) has a number of local chapters in Virginia, although it characteristically lacks a state organization. These local chapters of women meet to pray and study the Bible, then remain afterward to do politics. This gives the organization an especially good base for grassroots lobbying for all levels of government, for there are active chapters in most counties.
The Christian Right in Virginia encompasses a wide range of individuals working on a wide variety of issues. Although most activists would agree that the core agenda involves education, abortion, traditional families, and homosexuality, on each of these issues activists take a range of positions.
An earlier organization, the Moral Majority, is now defunct, but its failures held important lessons for the leaders of the extant groups. The Moral Majority failed because of the religious prejudice of its local leaders, who often preached that Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, and Pentecostals were all headed for hell because of doctrinal errors. The latest wave of groups has worked hard to prevent that type of particularism, with some success.
The Christian Right is also an identifiable faction within the Republican party of Virginia, and in past elections this has polarized the party. For our purposes it is important to consider that former members of associations continue to do political work that can contribute to or to harm democracy even after the group has disbanded. Moreover, some of the impact of associations may be exacerbated in state and local politics if their activists assume positions of leadership, as occurred in the Allen administration.
In 1999, the Christian Right has been active in state politics for more than 20 years. They have substantial influence in the Republican party, having helped elect the state party chair and many members of the state central committee. They control county and local Republican party committees in many areas. More than any social movement in the 20th century, the Christian Right has substantial influence in a major political party in Virginia.[2]
Yet after more than 20 years of crying in the wilderness, the policy victories of the Christian Right are minor, compared with those achieved by other social movements, and compared with the policy goals of movement activists. The state has adopted parental notification on abortion, and a ban on “partial birth abortions,” but these are far from the goals of movement activists Most of the other victories claimed by movement leaders have been defensive: defeat of certain education programs, of legislation to regulate home day care providers, to recognize same sex marriages, to redefine “family” in some programs to include unmarried and same-sex couples, to regulate parental involvement in schools, stop a move to regulate church-run crisis pregnancy centers. Many activists feel they are fighting a holding battle against a tide of liberal social change.
The Christian Right and Virginia Politics: An Assessment
Beyond its political impact, however, it is important to assess the contribution of the movement to democracy. There have not been any empirical studies to measure the impact of the movement on various elements of democratic processes, so what I offer here is my informed judgment based on long research but no hard data on these questions.
The Christian Right has generated heated rhetoric from both sides. Some Christian Right groups portray themselves in private communications to members as the only force protecting Christians from the forces of social decay. Groups which have mobilized to fight the Christian Right, such as People for the American Way, seek to arouse fear that the Christian Right might someday “take power” in language that subtly suggests a comparison to Nazis. A sober assessment of the Christian Right suggests that in some respects it has played a positive role in Virginia, and in some respects its role has been negative.
Warren (2001) has developed a framework for assessing the impact of associations on democracy. He suggests that there are three main category of effects which voluntary associations may have on democracy – developing capacities of citizens, constituting public conversations, and support for democratic institutions. Each effect is complex and multifaceted, and organizations vary in their contributions to democracy in each area. Before we can discuss the effects more concretely, however, it is helpful to briefly consider the characteristics of the Christian Right that might produce these effects.
The Sources of Democratic Effects: The Christian Right in Context
Warren argues that these democratic effects spring differentially from various characteristics of organizations. He identifies three characteristics of organizations that help produce democratic effects. First, organizations differ in the ease with which members can exit. Members of Christian Right groups can easily “vote with their feet” and leave organizations. In some parts of the country, Christian Coalition activists are indeed leaving that organization and transferring their energies to the Family Research Council or other groups, or by leaving politics altogether. Warren suggests that easy exit prevents members from insisting on a voice in policymaking, but this is less true in the Christian Right. For many members, politics flows from religion and their moral base, and thus voicing their political views is similar to testifying to God’s grace – a frequent practice in evangelical churches. Although members dissatisfied with the moderation of the Christian Coalition can always move their activism to another social movement organization, many feel the need to criticize the organization’s policies in open meetings and work to influence the group’s agenda.
The Christian Right itself is in a larger Republican party coalition, from which its exit is more costly. The movement can chose to withdraw from politics, but it is difficult to imagine the movement allying itself with the Democratic party. Exit from the GOP coalition (as Patrick Buchanan is contemplating in late 1999) would increase the electoral fortunes of liberal Democrats, so movement activists are forced to continue to struggle within the GOP. This forces movement leaders to work hard to have a voice in Republican party politics, to influence platforms, and to win nominations.
Warren also suggests that groups differ in the means of reproduction. Here the Christian Right is complex, for it seeks to undertake a social transformation, but it also seeks to influence the coercive power of the state. Indeed, much of the recent soul-searching by early Christian Right activists charges that the movement became obsessed with political transformation, at the expense of social change. Clearly the Christian Coalition chose to focus on winning elections without convincing the culture of the validity of the policies they sought to implement.
Finally, associations differ in their constitutive goods. The Christian Right has attempted to mold a coherent social identity among conservative Christians. Leaders inform potential members of their common political interests, of their disadvantage in society, and of the benefits of collective action. In addition, the Christian Right distributes what Wilson has called “purposive” benefits – ideological payoffs for those who believe that they must join together to protect the family, to protect the lives of the unborn, and to protect the rights of Christian families, or in some cases to battle Satan.
Groups of this kind, say Warren, are especially likely to develop the political skills of their members, not terribly likely to develop civic virtues such as tolerance and support for democratic norms, and have a mixed potential for developing critical skills. They have high potential for constituting public communication and deliberation, and high potential for representing differences in the political debate, but low potential for representing commonalities. They have low potentials for coordination and cooperation, but mixed potential for subsidarity.
Let us consider each of these in turn. In evaluating the extent to which the Christian Right may have influenced these democratic effects, I draw heavily on in-depth interviews with movement activists and other Virginians conducted over the past 5 years. In a few cases I will also cite work that is based on surveys I conducted with Mark Rozell of GOP activists in the state, but in many cases there simply is no survey data to address certain questions – e.g. whether the Christian Right increases the efficacy of their members. Future research on this question would be quite valuable.
Developing Individual Capacities
The Christian Right’s membership draws heavily from white evangelical churches. Evangelical Christians are slightly less educated than other Americans, and historically they have been significantly less politically active because of elements of their religious doctrine (Wilcox, 1992). Thus the Christian Right has faced a difficult task in politicizing a constituency with theological views that lead it to withdraw from public life.
The Christian Right has partially succeeded in encouraging evangelicals to become involved in politics. They have pursued several tactics: offering alternative theology, stressing the importance of “fighting the good fight” against Satan on earth (Wilcox, Linzy, and Jelen, 1991), and simply arguing that Christians have a responsibility to engage in politics, to fight for the policies they believe in.