[RC] Conservative Christians and the Republican Convention

[BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community]

 
White Conservative Christian America  Not Going Down Without a Fight
Paul Harvey
Religion  Dispatches
July 15, 2016
 
 
 
 
 

 
A vortex of new  stories on Wednesday concerning the upcoming GOP 
convention, platform, and Trump  coronation, placed together with forthcoming 
works 
about the rapid racial and  demographic remapping of American Christianity 
(and American unbelief, for that  matter), suggests that, if the end is near, 
the cultural right still has plenty  of punches to dish out.
First, as yet another broad survey of attitudes among Trump supporters  
indicates, a _pervasive  sense of racial anxiety_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/us/politics/donald-trump-white-identity.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Hom
epage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&W
T.nav=top-news)  characterizes a broad base: 
Dozens of interviews—with ardent Trump supporters and curious students,  
avowed white nationalists, and scholars who study the interplay of race and  
rhetoric—suggest that the passions aroused and channeled by Mr. Trump take  
many forms, from earnest if muddled rebellion to deeper and more elaborate  
bigotry.
This is more confirmation than “news,” but stands powerfully in relation 
to a  few other related news items and scholarly findings. 
Related to that is the _most recent Pew study_ 
(http://religiondispatches.org/new-poll-evangelicals-backing-trump/)  showing 
that evangelicals are “
rallying”  to Trump in numbers even greater than they did to Mitt Romney at the 
same point  in the 2012 election cycle. According to the report, “fully 78% 
of white  evangelical voters say they would vote for Trump if the election 
were held  today, including about a third who ‘strongly’ back his campaign.”
 Vocal  evangelical proponents of #NeverTrump, in short, have made _little 
or no headway_ 
(http://religiondispatches.org/nevertrump-evangelicals-must-face-the-music/) . 
The second involves news coming from the GOP platform committee. Famously,  
after their 2012 debacle of self-deporting much of any chance of victory, 
party  leaders conducted an autopsy over their recent presidential aspirant 
corpses,  and determined that the only way forward was a bigger tent, a move 
away from  divisive social issues (which, in Trump’s words, could be called “
losers”), and  some attempt to embrace or entice greater ethnic diversity, 
particularly among  Latino voters. 
Evidently the autopsy report did not reach this year’s platform committee. 
Or  if it reached them, it’s clear that _drafters  of the platform_ 
(https://www.platform.gop/) —featuring co-chair _Mary  Fallin_ 
(http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/mary-fallin-countrys-worst-governor-243539011803)
  (current 
hard-right governor of Oklahoma _recently  quoted_ 
(http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/mary-fallin-donald-trump-race-225341)  
as believing that Trump 
was campaigning as a “racial healer”), and  including the repeatedly 
discredited _pseudo-historian  David Barton_ 
(http://a.tfn.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_religious_right_watch_david_barton_scholarship_criticisms)
  and 
hard-right culture warrior Tony Perkins—is a grab-bag of  wish lists from 
cultural conservatives, white cultural nationalists, and  “government is the 
problem” supply-siders. _The  platform_ 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/us/politics/republican-convention-issues.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&c
lickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=t
op-news) , in fact, as it is currently shaping up, while in accord with  
Trump’s views on immigration and “the wall” and issues of national defense 
and  coal as a “clean” energy source, is far to the right of Trump himself on 
issues  of gay marriage and a panoply of other social issues: 
But nearly every provision that expressed disapproval of homosexuality,  
same-sex marriage or transgender rights passed. The platform calls for  
overturning the Supreme Court marriage decision with a constitutional  
amendment 
and makes references to appointing judges “who respect traditional  family 
values.” 
. . . 
Additional provisions included those that promoted state laws to limit  
which restrooms transgender people could use, nodded to “conversion therapy”  
for gays by saying that parents should be free to make medical decisions 
about  their children without interference and stated that “natural marriage” 
between  a man and a woman is most likely to result in offspring who do not 
become  drug-addicted or otherwise damaged.
To be sure, platforms are symbols, much fought over and then generally  
ignored and forgotten except by historians. Nonetheless, this is the place 
where  leaders of factions of a party faithful can make their mark and demand  
accountability. And by that standard, the cultural and religious right will  
leave its mark. Indeed, the single provision that took up the most time in 
terms  of debate involved a provision urging elective study of the Bible in 
public  schools, and reliance on religion in public policy decisions. 
The platform demands that lawmakers use religion as a guide when  
legislating, stipulating “that man-made law must be consistent with God-given,  
natural rights.” 
It also encourages the teaching of the Bible in public schools because, the 
 amendment said, a good understanding of its contents is “indispensable for 
the  development of an educated citizenry.”
Finally, according to the platform, while internet pornography is a public  
health crisis, guns are not. 
The resurgence of cultural conservatives in the drafting of the party  
platform, and cultural nationalists more generally within the Trump orbit,  
stands in stark contrast to what Robert Jones calls “the eclipse of white  
Christian America” in _his  piece_ 
(http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/the-eclipse-of-white-christian-america/490724/)
  for The Atlantic, 
which effectively previews his new book  _The End of White Christian America_ 
(https://www.amazon.com/End-White-Christian-America/dp/1501122290/ref=sr_1_1?
s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468518515&sr=1-1&keywords=end+of+white+christian+americ
a) . Jones argues: 
These racial and ethnic changes are dramatic, but they only partially  
account for the sense of dislocation many whites feel. In order to understand  
the magnitude of the shift, it’s important to also assess white Christian  
America’s waning cultural influence. It’s impossible to grasp the depth of  
many white Americans’ anxieties and fears—or comprehend recent phenomena 
like  the rise of the Tea Party or Donald Trump in American politics, the 
zealous  tone of the final battles over gay rights, or the racial tensions that 
have  spiked over the last few years—without understanding that, along with 
its  population, America’s religious and cultural landscape is being 
fundamentally  altered.
By this reasoning, the drama of the current GOP platform debate is part of  
the waning cry of a white evangelical Protestant America (not just the 
mainline,  long since noted to have been in decline, but evangelicals as well) 
whose  demographic trajectory inexorably points towards a diminished cultural 
 significance. 
Predictions invoking “deaths” and “the end of . . . ” may justifiably be  
viewed somewhat suspiciously. Over the past decade, as my colleague Dan 
Schultz  _points out_ 
(http://religiondispatches.org/new-poll-evangelicals-backing-trump/) , rumors 
of the death of the religious right  consistently turn 
out to have been greatly exaggerated. The question here is  whether an 
American Christianity moving towards a de-Europeanization,  necessarily means a 
different relation of religion and politics over the next  generation. That 
question, it seems to me, remains open. In the meantime, the  religious right 
and a broad spectrum of white cultural nationalists will go down  swinging, 
even if they often end up punching  themselves.



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