Page 34 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

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CHRISTIANITY TODAY
Like church influence on voting, those efforts to influence political policy are
enhanced by the kind of grassroots mobility at which Protestants now excel.
Televangelists such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have capitalized on
changes in broadcast regulations and communication technology to speak di-
rectly to the public through religious television programs. They create data banks
of supporters and mobilize them under the auspices of local congregations work-
ing in conjunction with organizations such as the Moral Majority and, more
recently, the Christian Coalition. As a result, conservative Protestants can, in
close races, affect the outcome of elections. That, in turn, gives them power to
affect elected leaders' issue priorities and, in some cases, their issue positions.
Historically, African-American Protestants and white Protestant members of
mainline or old-line churches voted Republican. Catholics and more conserva-
tive white Protestants voted for Democrats. However, a religiopolitical realign-
ment began with the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, picked up momentum
during the 1960s, and became complete in the 1970s, when conservative white
Protestants, who had avoided politics, entered the political arena.
As the Democratic Party broadened its concern for the disadvantaged to in-
clude protection of civil rights, the Republican Party positioned itself as the
party of law and order and traditional values. Because Democratic issue posi-
tions were consistent with the concerns that entered mainline Protestantism with
the social gospel movement of the late nineteenth century, the Republican Party
gradually lost its advantage among mainline Protestants. Conservative white
Protestants' concern for personal morality moved them into the Republican
camp. Although African-American Protestants hold opinions similar to those of
conservative white Protestants and of the Republican Party on personal morality
issues such as abortion and family values, as a group they became firmly Dem-
ocratic because of their overriding interest in civil rights and justice issues.
Catholics became the swing voters. Church teachings on abortion and family
values now lead many Catholics to vote Republican; however, church emphasis
on the common good and a consistent ethic of life as expressed in pastoral
letters on peace and on economic and social justice undergird the traditional
tendency of Catholics to vote Democratic.
SOURCES: Robert Booth Fowler and Allen D. Hertzke, Religion and Politics in Amer-
ica: Faith, Culture and Strategic Choices, 1985; Mark A. Noll, ed., Religion and Amer-
ican Politics: From the Colonial Period to the 1980s, 1990.
Judith M. Buddenbaum

CHRISTIANITY TODAY, "A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction," was
founded by evangelist Billy Graham and L. Nelson Bell in 1956, with Carl F.
H. Henry as editor. In 1975, Harold Myra became president and publisher of
the then financially troubled magazine. Today it has a circulation of 185,000
and for the past 16 years has operated in the black. In its 40th anniversary issue,
Graham wrote about why he founded the magazine: