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Conservative Christians have been a part of the political landscape of American society for the better part of the twentieth century. The roots of this movement grew out of the Fundamentalist movement which emerged in the early part of the century as a response to the theological relativization of "Modernism" within the mainline Protestant churches.This movement found significant political expression in the struggle to enact Prohibition, and in legislative efforts to prohibit the teaching of evolution in public schools.
The movement appeared to reach its apex at the time of the celebrated 1925 Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee which saw the acquital of the young biology teacher. William Jenning Bryan, the leader of the movement and attorney for the prosecution, collapsed and died after the trial.
The movement reappears in the 1930s and 40s with Fundamentalists like Gerald B. Winrod and Gerald L. K. Smith who preached a mixture of anti-Semitism, anti-Communist and segregation. Charles E. Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest eventually became the most powerful leader of this movement. A pioneer in religious broadcasting, his radio programs reached millions of listeners before he was silenced by church superiors.
The Religious Right survived in the post World War II era, but no leader inspired so many as Father Coughlin. The religious right received renewed vigor as the result of the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion. The nation's 1976 Bicentennial celebration also provided a platform that allowed conversatives a chance to advocate a return to the "Christian" heritage of the nation. Jerry Falwell, who would later found the Moral Majority, conducted "I Love America" rallies on the steps of the State Capitols of every state during that period.
The presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan in 1980 received a considerable from the New Christian Right. In the Spring, nearly a half a million largely Pentecostals, supported by Pat Robinson, gather on The Mall for a "Washington for Jesus" rally. During the Summer, Falwell's support of Reagan gained high visibility for his Moral Majority movement that had been formed the previous year.
During the early 1980s, when Falwell was the symbolic leader of the religious right, Robertson played a low profile in public while going quitely about the business of building an organization that would help launch his own bid for the presidency in 1988.
While many political pundits viewed Roberson's presidential bid a failure, the political organization he created was the direct precursor to the Christian Coalition. Ralph Reed, the Executive Director of the organization, succeeded in turning the nascent grass roots political organization that Robertson built for his presidential candidacy into a viable force in American politics.
Negative sentiments are typically implied when the concepts "cult" and "sect" are employed in popular discourse. Since the Religious Movements Homepage seeks to promote religious tolerance and appreciation of the positive benefits of pluralism and religious diversity in human cultures, we encourage the use of alternative concepts that do not carry implicit negative stereotypes. For a more detailed discussion of both scholarly and popular usage of the concepts "cult" and "sect," please visit our Conceptualizing "Cult" and "Sect" page, where you will find additional links to related issues.
The Christian Coalition claims to have 1.7 million members with over 1,425chapters.
As a political organization, the Christian Coalition does not have anexplicit set of theological beliefs. Rather, the Coalition pursues a political agenda that its founder believes to be consistent with Christian doctrine. As a broadcaster and prolific writer, Robertson's theological views are hardly orthodox. And his political views, which he tends to legitimate in term of his religious ideology, are beyond the mainstream of large majority of political conservativs.
In addition to founding the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson also founded the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) and The 700 Club and he uses these mediums to express his views.
Robertson's social and political views are frequent themes for his pontification on The 700 Club . Robertson believes that abortion is murder, calling it "America's Holecaust." He warns that "this particular procedure that is maiming and destroying the lives of many women."
He is also opposed to the woman's movement calling it "fanatical and ugly...anit-God, anti-capitalism, anti-family, anti-birth, and anit-heterosexual" ( The Turning Tide , 116). Robertson advocates a "return to the traditional family and the traditional relationships in the home." In order to accomplish this, a "wife is to recognize her husband's role and submit to his wisdom in matters where there may be disagreement" and that "the more sensible division of labor would be for the man to 'bring home the bacon' and the woman to 'fry it up in a pan'" ( The Turning Tide , 185).
Homosexuality, Robertson believes, is an "abomination by God." When Jesse Helms' stated in a Senate hearing that homosexuality is "not normal," and that homosexuals should seek professional help for their problems, he received a standing ovation by the stacked audience. Robertson's response to this event was "isn't it amazing how people respond to a little honesty?" ( The Turning Tide, 71).
Robertson also makes frequent attacks on the "liberal media", saying that "our people, our entertainers, our authors, our journalists, our politicians make blasphemy of God's name a staple of their vocabulary" ( The Turning Tide, 295). He accuses the media of aiding in the moral decline of America.
Robertson strongly supports bringing religion back into the public schools. He believes that "in removing religion from public schools, America has been stripped of religious and moral values, has been a vast social science laboratory, and is overrun by crime, violence, drugs, alcohol, and sexual permissiveness" ( The Turning Tide, 243).
Robertson's prolific writings and his television broadcasts are a seemingly unending litany against "liberals," and other fellow travelers who are responsible for all the ails America.
There are millions of Amerians who are concerned about the moral state of the nation and see religion as a healthy antidote. This, no doubt, is an important factor in assessing the success of the Christian Coalition. On the other hand, many who see religion as healthy for the courtry would not support many of the specific beliefs and policies of Robertson.
Ralph Reed, the brilliant young executive director of the Christian Coalition, has steered the Christian Coalition down a path that has avoided taking positions of many of Robertson's positions. By downplaying Robertson's more radical views, Reed has succeeded in building an organization that is much closer to the mainstream of conservative American politics.
The Christian Coalition is a pro-family religious organization committed to providing other pro-family Americans with a legislative voice in Washington. Robertson set the Coalition up as a "tax exempt 'social welfare organization'" which by definition is "concerned merely with the 'common good and general welfare' of society as well as 'civic betterments and improvements'" (Sabato and Simpson 111). Legally, the Christian Coalition is restricted from "directly or indirectly intervening in elections and involvement in campaigns generally must not be their 'primary' purpose" (Sabato and Simpson 112).
While prohibited by federal law from participating in partisanpolitics, the political views and agenda of the Christian Coalition are well know. They have had a profound impact on politics and especially the Republican party. The Christian Coalition supported the 104th Congress' "Contract With America." When the Christian Coalition unvailed their own "Contract With the American Family," virtually every conservative Congressman and Senator was on hand for the press conference.
The "Contract With the American Family" embodies the Christian Coalition's beliefs. Specifically, it states that the Christian Coalition seeks to protect the sanctity of life through its anti-abortion stance and to reaffirm traditional family values by opposing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that would provide equal rights for women. The Contract would also retrict pornograpy.
The Contract With the American Family also seeks to blur the Constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state by amending the Constitution to include the Religious Equality Amendment that would "allow voluntary, student and citizen-initiated free speech in non-compulsory settings such as courthouse lawns, high school graduation ceremonies, and sports events."
The Contract further advocates transferring funding of the federal Department of Education back to families and local school boards, promoting school choice (legislation that will provide parents with a broader choice of schools for their children), protecting and increasing parental rights through the enactment of the Parental Rights Act (legislation that "ensures that parental rights are not violated and ensure that parents have the foremost duty and responsibility to direct the upbringing of their children"), and privatizing the arts by making organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) voluntary organizations funded through private contributions.
The Coalition neither endorses or makes monetary donations to candidates but, rather, distributes political literature listing candidates positions on issues. Claiming 1.7 million members and the ability to distribute over 30 million pieces of literature, almost exclusively throught churches, on the eve of elections, the Christian Coalition has achieved considerable poliical influence.
The success of the Christian Coalition can partly be measured by the number of liberal organizations who vigorously oppose them. The conservative Christian movement has generated new organizations, created explicitly as counter movements to do battle. And, older established organizations have stepped forward to the cause of combatting the religious right.
Groups like Fight the Right, and The Interfaith Alliance, are examples of new organizations. People For the American Way was created during the 1980 preidential campaign to challenge the influence of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority.
The American Civil Liberties Union, , an old established civil libertarian organization, opposes the Christian Coalition and other conservative Christian organizations. The ACLU believes the Religious Right promotes a "divisive agenda" and that they are "manipulating religion to advance an extreme political agenda" and, thus, they infringe upon Americans' inherent civil liberties.
Americans United For the Separation of Church and State, is a Baptist lobbying organization. They are vehemently opposed to the Christian Coalition, believing that it represents a serious threat to the separation of church and state. They further charge that the Christian Coalition is merely a "stalking horse for TV preacher Pat Robertson" and that it "remains fixated on religiously based social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and bashing public education."
Amerians United publishes a monthly periodical entitled Church and State which devotes consierable attention to the Christian Coalition. They frequently offer explicit responses to the Coalition's periodicals. Americans United For the Separation of Church and State avidly battle for the separation of church and state and against private school vouchers.
TheContract With the American Family
In-House Lobbist Network
Released May 17, 1995, this is the Christian Coalition's suggestions for the 104th
Congress to fulfill their professed mandate for change. Through this contract, the
Christian Coalition attempts to lobby Congress to pass their agenda.
http://www.cc.org/publications/ca/speech/contract.html
This site provides a list of links to web sites of traditionallyconservative
organizations including the Christian Coalition, the National Rifle Association, and the
Republican National Committee. Links to governmental institutions, like the House of
Representatives and the Senate, and mediasources, like the Washington Times and C-SPAN,
are also included.
http://www.starboardresponse.com/inhlreferences.htm>
The American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the oldest and best knownorganization
devoted to the protection of civil liberties in the United States. The ACLU has long
been a staunch defender of the most ulta-extreme groups on both the right and the left.
However, they tend to view the religious right as a threat to civil liberties and, thus,
have been openly critical of the religious right in general, and the Christian Coalition
in particular. This link goes directly to their content on the religious right. The
root site
(http://www. aclu.org)
provides a gateway to lot of important information about the ACUL.
http://www.aclu.org/about/right2.html
People For the American Way
The People For the American Way was founded by television producer Norman Lear in 1980
during the presidential campaign as a response to the high visibility of several
television preachers, but most particularly Jerry Falwell. A primary objective of
People For has been to monitor and counter the "divisive agenda" of the Religious Right.
This web site provides a profile on the Christian Coalition, as well as well as useful
information about many other conservative groups viewed as a threat to the liberal
tradition in America.
http://www.pfaw.org
The Interfaith
Alliance
The Interfaith Alliance is a liberal religious organization created for the purpose of
providing an alternative voice to the religious right. They characterize their mission
as promoting a "positive role of religion as a healing and constructive force in public
life."Much of the activity of Interfaith Alliance, however, seems to be defined in terms
of opposition to groups like the Christian Coalition who, in their view, "manipulate
religion to advance an extreme political agenda." This site provides information about
goals, objectives, and membership of the Interfaith Alliance.
http://www.intr.net/tialliance/execsum.html
The Christian Right
This article by Grant Wacker, respected Duke historian of American religion, defines,
locates,and offers a succinct overview of the religious right in the U.S. As part of
the National Humanities Center web series on Divining America: Religion and the National
Culture, it offers access to excellent instructional materials.
http://ipmwww.ncsu.edu:8080/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/chr_rght.htm
Fight the Right
This is an article about the formation, the rise, and the powerfulinfluence of the
Christian Coalition as a politically mobile force in American politics. It is a link
from Fight the Right, an organization devoted to fighting the religious right.
http://qrd.tcp.com/qrd/www/FTR/christco.html
Books About Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition
- Boston, Robert. 1996
- The Most Dangerous Man in America?: Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coaltion . Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
- Donovan, John B. 1988
- Pat Robertson, the Authorized Biography . New York: Macmillan Publishing.
- Forge, Alex. 1996.
- The Empire God Built: Inside Pat Robertson's Media Machine . New York: John Wiley & Sons.
- Hadden, Jeffrey K. and Anson Shupe. 1988.
- Televangelism: Power and Politics on God's Frontier . New York: Henry Holt.
- Harrell, David Edwin, Jr. 1987.
- Pat Robertson . San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers.
- Queen, Edward L., Prothero, Stephen R., and Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr. 1996.
- The Encyclopedia of American Religious History , Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Facts on File, Inc.
- Rozell, Mark J. and Clyde Wildox, eds. 1997.
God at the Grassroots, 1995: The Christian Right in the 1996 Elections. Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 285. pps.
- Sabato, Larry J. and Glenn R. Simpson. 1996.
- Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics . New York: Times Books.
- Watson, Justin. 1997.
- The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration, Demands for Recognition . New York: St. Martins Press.
Select Articles and Chapters
- Goodstein, Laurie. 1999.
- "Coalition's Woes May Hinder Goals of Christian Right," New York Times . (Aug 2, 1999: A1;10).
- MacDonald, G. Jeffrey. 1999.
- "Spiritual Politics and the IRS" . Religion in the News . (Summer, 1999) 2:2
- Miller, Bill and Susan B. Glasser. 1999.
- "A Victory for Christian Coalition," Washington Post . (Aug 3, 1999: A1;6).
Writings of Pat Robertson
- Robertson, Pat. 1986.
- America's Dates With Destiny . Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.
- Robertson, Pat. 1990.
- The New Millennium . Dallas: Word.
- Robertson, Pat. 1991.
- The New World Order . Dallas: Word.
- Robertson, Pat. 1992.
- The Secret Kingdom . Dallas: Word.
- Robertson, Pat. 1993.
- The Turning Tide . Dallas: Word.
Writings of Ralph Reed
- Reed, Ralph. 1996.
- Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Soul of American Politics . New York: The Free Press.
- Reed, Ralph. 1996.
- After the Revolution: How the Christian Coalition is Impacting America . Dallas: Word. [originally published in 1994 under the title Politically Incorrect ].
Contact Information:
Christian Coalition 1801-L Sara Drive
Chesapeake, VA 23320
Phone: (757) 424-2630
Fax: (757) 424-9068
Subscriptions to
Christian American:
(800) 455-9900
E-mail: letters@cc.org
World Wide Web:
http://www.cc.org
Created by Michele Bidelspach
Soc 257: New Religious Movements
Spring Term, 1997
University of Virginia
Thanks to Ashley Clark for development
of an earlier version of this page, Fall Term, 1996
Last updated: 03/01/00