{"id":10924,"date":"2007-05-17T07:07:37","date_gmt":"2007-05-17T14:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2007\/05\/17\/the-shifting-priorities-of-the-religious-right.html"},"modified":"2007-05-17T07:07:37","modified_gmt":"2007-05-17T14:07:37","slug":"the_shifting_priorities_o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/17\/the_shifting_priorities_o.html","title":{"rendered":"The shifting priorities of the Religious Right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interesting article on NPR yesterday about some demographic shifts going on in the evangelical \/ conservative Christian \/ “Religious Right” movement<\/a>.  While issues like abortion and homosexuality are still important, more evangelical congregations seem to be looking at other causes, including the environment.  That differs them from old-school leaders like the late Jerry Falwell.<\/p>\n

\n

“It is Satan’s attempt to redirect the church’s primary focus,” Falwell said in March to his 22,000-person-strong congregation at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va.<\/p>\n

“I’m telling these guys they need to get off that kick,” Falwell said, “because the idea is to divert your energies from the message and the mission and the vision of the church, to something less.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

More environmentally-conscious evangelicals note, to the contrary, that the very first commands to humanity (Gen. 1:26-28<\/a>, Gen. 2:15<\/a>) involves stewardship over creation.  Other “compassion issues” involve concerns about the war and dealing with poverty.<\/p>\n

\n

For years, groups like Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council adopted a narrow strategy. They zeroed in on “below the belt issues” \u2014 abortion and more recently, homosexuality. Politically, it worked. Evangelicals overwhelmingly supported George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Northland Pastor Hunter says he hasn’t changed his beliefs about pro-life issues one bit.<\/p>\n

“The problem has become that we have paid so much attention to the human being in the womb that we have forgotten about the human being out of the womb,” Hunter said. “It’s become such a focus for some leaders that they don’t want to address the other pro-life issues, such as climate change, such as poverty, such as AIDS.”<\/p>\n

Last year, the Christian Coalition asked Hunter to become its president. He agreed, as long as he could spotlight attention on non-sexual issues, such as the environment and poverty. At the last moment, both sides got cold feet and the union was called off.<\/p>\n

It was an early test of what may be a coming generational shift. For years, Falwell, Robertson and Dobson dominated the Christian message. But now, some younger evangelicals are complaining that the old message focuses more on what Christians are against than on what they are for.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The result may be that the evangelical vote isn’t as locked-up Republican as it has been since the Reagan years.  There may be enough defections — either to Democrats or to simply not vote — to cause some further swing in elections in the future.<\/p>\n

Interesting times, perhaps …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interesting article on NPR yesterday about some demographic shifts going on in the evangelical \/ conservative Christian \/ “Religious Right” movement.  While issues like abortion and homosexuality are still important,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2008","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":130939,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/22\/the-pastor-the-presumptive-and-the-playboy.html","url_meta":{"origin":10924,"position":0},"title":"The Pastor, the Presumptive, and the Playboy","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 22-Jun-16 6:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Religious Right leader Jerry Falwall Jr was tickled to introduce Donald Trump at an evangelical summit today. So tickled, he had a picture taken in Trump's office of himself, Trump, Becki Falwell ... oh, and a framed edition of Trump's 1990 cover shot in Playboy.http:\/\/www.dailydot.com\/lol\/donald-trump-playboy-magazine-jerry-falwell-jr\/I'm not bothered myself by the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Trump%2BPlayboy.PNGimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10905,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/22\/farewell_to_falwell.html","url_meta":{"origin":10924,"position":1},"title":"Farewell to Falwell","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-May-07 6:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As thousands gathered to mourn Rev. Jerry Falwell\u00a0at his funeral today, I'll point to this article that looks back at Falwell's earliest activism, and some of the founding impetus...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7792,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/08\/10\/testing_times.html","url_meta":{"origin":10924,"position":2},"title":"Testing times","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Aug-05 10:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"Does anyone actually listen to Jerry Falwell any more? Anyone, that is, besides the folks he manages to offend every time he opens his mouth? 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