The Origins of the Christian Right

This post explores the relationship between the Christian Right and social issues of the 1970s, specifically the abortion debate.  Many Christian Groups and leaders that made their names in the 1970s point to abortion as the issue that propelled the conservative Christian Movement into politics.  In researching the Christian Right and its history, more varied reasons and a longer timeline are uncovered.  This changes and in some ways complicated the origins of the Christian Right and its place in American political history. 

Members and leaders of the Christian Right in America often point to the social issues of the 1970s, specifically the abortion debate and the Roe v. Wade decision as the rallying point of the movement.  Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist preacher and co-founder of the Moral Majority recalled that the Supreme Court and the lack of opposition towards it as particularly worrying sign of America’s moral decline (Balmer, The Real Roots of the Religious Right).  Like Falwell’s former organization, other Christian Right political groups like For the Family and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition continue their fight against abortion.

Is this origin story true, did the issue of abortion and other moral changes of the 1970s in America singularly launch the Christian Right into a more active role?  Diving into the history of the Christian Right reveals the much older, and complicated creation of this movement.   From the Scopes trial in the 1920s to the overarching conservative movement gaining momentum after the upheaval of the 1960s, the Christian Right cannot base its genesis solely on their opposition of social issues of the 1970s like the abortion debate.  

            Before explaining the history of the conservative Christian movement, I would like to define what the term “Christian Right” means.  In Onward Christian Soldier? Clyde Wilcox and Carin Robinson define it as “a social movement that attempts to mobilize evangelical Protestants and other orthodox Christians into conservative political action” (p. 8).  They also specify the movement as Christian, as opposed to a more general religious movement, because an overwhelming amount of the leadership and membership is of the Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestant denominations. Evidence also suggests that these particular denominations are more likely to support conservative political stances than other groups of Christians in America (Pelz, 2014). In the 1978 congressional elections, Christian Right candidates made significant gains by running on conservative stances, including pro-life positions (Green and Hill, 1993). By the end of the 1980s the Christian right had a considerable stake in the national political picture, particularly in the Republican Party (Hopson and Smith, 1999).   

            The eventual success of the Christian Right in the late 1970s and 1980s can be traced back to the rise of Protestant Fundamentalists in the early 20^th century.  These Fundamentalists began taking a more active role in American politics become of the perceived threat modern thinking would have on traditional Christian teachings about the world (Schnabel, 2013).  The 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial is a famous example of the Fundamentalist opposition to the modern evolutionary explanation of life instead of the Christian Book of Genesis. This trial demonstrates how serious the Fundamentalists viewed the threat of  nontraditional, non-Biblical based changes in America at the time.  Although they continued their existence through the 1930s and 1940s, the Fundamentalists suffered a lack of funding in the decades following their early 1900s inception (Wilcox, Robinson p. 38).   This early movement faltered, but the act of the Christian Right engaging in the national debate over evolution would set precedent for their later involvements in politics, including their resurgence in the 1970s.

             In the 1950s the Christian Right was once again involved in the political discussion on the question of communism in the United States.  The most active Christian Right leader during the 1950s red scare was Reverend Billy Graham.  Graham railed heavily against the danger that communism posed, and accused various American political leaders of not recognizing the threat (Martin, With God on Our side, p. 35).  Carl McIntire, leader of the American and the International Council of Christian Churches was another active conservative Christian leader warning of communism and its threat to American civilization.  McIntire also warned against the danger Catholicism posed to America, although his anti-communism stances received more attention at the time (Martin, 36).  This is notable, because in the 1970s and 1980s Catholics would be an ally of the Christian Right in the abortion debate.  The stance against communism was not at all an unpopular sentient at the time in the United States, and the Christian Right made large gains in the 1950s. 

            These previous efforts by the Christian Right show that their heavy involvement in the American political realm was not unique to the 1970s and the issues of that time period.  What makes these efforts against the teaching of evolution in the 1920s and communism in the 1950s especially connected to the movement of the 1970s is the message of changing morals in America.  Whether it was the change from the biblical understanding of creation or the legalization of abortion, the Christian Right stood with the traditional view in the face of modernism. 

The possibility of a change in the moral fabric of the United States has periodically excited the conservative Christian movement into action.  Individual issues like the inclusion of evolution in schoolroom textbooks (Scopes Trial) or the legality of abortion are symptoms of a bigger shift in the American society about what is moral and what is not. Again in the 1950s, communism was viewed as a threat to the Western way of living, especially considering the view that the Soviet Union took towards religion.  The Christian Right did not suddenly spring to action because of Roe v. Wade, because the change in American culture which was the source of that decision had been brewing for a decade earlier.  Just like the modernization of the early 20^th century led to the Scopes Trial, the social changes in the 1960s are the roots of the 1970s debate over abortion.  The developments in the 1960s including the Sexual Revolution and the debate over American involvement in the war in Vietnam helped create the situation were the traditional ideas of the Christian Right had a sizeable audience within the American public. 

Some would suggest another issue of the 1960s is truly the birthplace of the modern Christian right movement, one where the Christian Right firmly sits on the wrong side of history.  

             In an article for Politico, Randell Balmer argues that instead of abortion as the rallying cry for the Christian Right, the real issue that mobilized it was segregation.  More specially, the challenge of Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status and its policy of not admitting African Americans provided a catalyst for conservative political leaders to involve the evangelical right.  Balmer contends that the IRS revoking Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status on the grounds of violating the Civil Rights Act was the event that obliged Evangelical leaders to take a more active role in politics.  Evangelical conservative leaders like Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation, capitalized on this situation to organize the Christian Right against government interference of organizations like Bob Jones University.   Balmer says that it was not until 1979, five years after the Roe v. Wade decision, that these same leaders championed the pro-life cause.  Even then Balmer believes that this was not out of some revelation about the issue, but a strategy like the Heritage foundation employed by conservative groups to deny Jimmy Carter second term as President of the United States in the 1980 election. 

This gap in between the Roe decision and the widespread opposition of abortion by the Evangelical Right provides evidence that this debate was not the beginning of the modern Christian Right.  If the abortion issue in America was the starting point for this movement, wouldn’t there have been more outcries from evangelicals in the early 1970s instead of late in the decade?  This delayed reaction complicates the claim that abortion and the Roe case challenged Evangelical sensibilities so much it motivated the creation of the modern Christian Right.  The evidence from this article suggests that government interference and enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was instead the starting point of the movement.  This position is also supported by the relative lack of opposition to legislative reform of the legality of abortion by Protestants compared to Catholics in the 1960s (Greenhouse and Siegel, 2011).   Members of the Christian Right also take issue with the abortion-based origin and also point to the Bob Jones decision as the beginning point.   Balmer claims in a book he wrote on the same subject that at an Evangelical Conference in 1990 Paul Weyrich made it a point that the movement’s origins lay in the battle with the IRS and not Roe v. Wade.  The activism that stripping Bob Jones University of its tax-exempt status brought and the delay in action over the Roe v. Wade decision make it clear that although abortion would become a cornerstone issue for the Christian Right, is was not the motivating factor for the creation of the movement.  

 

            The birth of the Christian Right can also be partly explained by the overall conservative movement that was gaining steam in 1970s.  Beginning in the early 1970s, the “New Right” as they would become known as, started to build support for a larger conservative movement based in the Republican Party.  The Christian Right like other sectors of the conservative wing was targeted as a potential voting block (Meagher).  This rise of the New Right puts the mobilization of the Christian Right in a different perspective.  If a larger, more varied conservative movement was targeting the Evangelical conservatives as a source of voters, then it could be suggested that their involvement in politics was a result the attention paid to them rather than a particular social issue.  It’s also important to mention the role that the election of Jimmy Carter as President of the United States played in the minds of Evangelicals.  President Carter was himself a Southern Evangelical, and his entry into the biggest stage in American politics gave Evangelicals an example of how they could be active in politics while at the same time embracing their faith (Freedman, 2005).  Many on the Christian Right did not agree with the more Carter’s more moderate views, but never the less he was a candidate that did not shy away from his evangelical roots and he won the election for the highest office in the land.  It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Carter was an inspiration for many evangelicals and their place in American politics.  The targeting of the Evangelical Right by the New Right and the election of Jimmy Carter in the 1976 Presidential election can partly explain why the Christian Right was willing to engage in politics in the 1970s.  

            These aspects of the Christian Right, the historical activity of evangelicals in the early and mid 20^th century, the fear of government intrusion into Christian establishments like Bob Jones University, and the rise of the a new conservative movement all help explain why the social issues of the 1970s cannot fully explain the rise of this movement.  While the issue of abortion and others like it undoubtedly play a role in the Christian Right, they cannot be solely responsible for the growth of it.  Like many political movements, the right circumstances and different trends in the United States came together at the time that allowed the movement to prosper.

            It is easy to see why the Christian Right would look to the abortion debate and Roe v. Wade as its point of origin.  This debate is an on going discussion in the United States, and to some represents the challenge that the supporters of tradition values face in the American political scene.  It’s a simple answer to why the Christian Right came to prominence.  Saying that this is the sole and primary reason for its rise is a limited and incomplete picture.  It discredits the efforts of conservatives outside the evangelical sphere and denies that other issues like the Bob Jones situation played a part.  It’s a view that does present a straightforward and marketable story.  But it is one that does not tell the whole story.  The origins of any political movement are important, and to leave out aspects of does a disservice to history and distorts the image of the movement in the present day.