The Right is loosing its forcus

In the contest for the two major 2008 presidential nominations in the United States, some puzzling phenomena emerge.

The pro-abortion, anti-family Democrat candidates are all touting their faith: Hilary Clinton says it’s what sustained her through Bill’s serial infidelities (not her burning ambition); Barak Obama insists he’s a Christian, in spite of his time being educated in a madrassa, and in spite of his support for abortion and same-sex ‘marriage’. All the lesser Democrat wannabees are also lugging Bibles to the podium in their quest for their party’s nomination.

Republic candidates, however, are shunning the “religious right”—and with good reason: their lives don’t show much evidence that Christianity matters to them at all, with two shining exceptions: Alan Keyes, the articulate, passionate pro-lifer who was a Reagan appointee as Cultural Ambassador to the United Nations; and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. And both are considered long-shot candidates at best.

The New York Times Sunday Magazine recently had an extensive article on the decline of evangelical influence over the Republican Party, and in that article Gov. Huckabee made some interesting comments that apply in the Canadian context, as well:
Huckabee [said] he welcomed a broadening of the evangelical political agenda. “You can’t just say ‘respect life’ exclusively in the gestation period,” he said, repeating a campaign theme.

But the leaders of the Christian conservative movement have not rallied to him. Many say he cannot win because he has not raised enough money... And some Christian conservatives take his “gestation period” line as a slight to their movement.

“They finally have the soldier they have been waiting for, and they shouldn’t send me out into the battlefield without supplies,” Huckabee [said] in exasperation.

He argued that the movement’s leaders would “become irrelevant” if they started putting political viability or low taxes ahead of their principles about abortion and marriage.

“In biblical terms, it is like the salt losing its flavor; it’s sand...” Huckabee said. “I think they are going to have a hard time going out into the pews and saying tax policy is what Jesus is about, that he said, ‘Come unto me all you who are overtaxed and I will give you rest’.”

A few evangelical opinion leaders, such as Dr. James Dobson, have said that if any of the pragmatists—Guiliani, McCain, Romney or Thompson for example—wins the Republican nomination, he will vote for a genuinely pro-life, pro-family third party candidate. For Christians like Dr. Dobson, principles matter much more than perceived “winnability”.

In the end, the example of evangelical leaders like Dr. Dobson—their adherence to principles, not their presumed political ‘cleverness’—is what will mark the path to restoring recognition of the sanctity of life and marriage. For unless Christian votes are taken away from the pragmatists—who, in the end, are willing to throw the babies to the wolves, if it gets the voters—they will never change their policies... and babies will continue to die.

Unless those of us who promote adoption instead of abortion begin to win significant Christian support, the use of taxpayers’ dollars to kill unwanted children, out of sight in tax-funded hospitals, will continue to be viewed as the best “solution” to unanticipated pregnancies. And euthanasia will soon be seen as the “solution” to the “burden” of aging parents.

In the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom cries out, “Those who hate Me love death!” That statement perfectly describes our culture today. And unless those who profess to love Wisdom have the moral gumption to break with the pragmatists, the moral decline of our culture will continue.
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Used by permission of Ron Grey Leader of The Christian Heritage Party of Canada