The Melting Pot of Christian Voters

March 21, 2008

Paul Lichterman, associate professor of religion and sociology in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, says that in religion, just as in politics, there is a left, right and center. To think of churchgoing Christians as homogeneous in attitudes and voting patterns would be a mistake.
 
Recently, many of the most vocal Christians groups have allied themselves with conservative Republicans, making abortion and gay rights their top priorities.

But religion has worn a wide variety of political faces in the past.

Evangelical Protestants were at the forefront of the anti-slavery movement, Lichterman notes. Mainline Protestants were very involved in the Civil Rights movement. And the first modern evangelical in the White House was Democrat Jimmy Carter.

“Some people are disappointed today,” Lichterman says, “because they don’t think there is a strong, visible, liberal Protestant involvement in today’s public issues.”
 
But Lichterman sees a new activism sprouting.

“Just now a movement is beginning to make liberal Christians be more vocal about their faith, to say ‘We are Christians, too,’” Lichterman explains. “That’s unusual, because for the past several decades the most vocal religious groups in public have been religious conservatives or fundamentalists.”

Why are these once quiet Christians speaking up?
 
“Liberal Protestants never left the public arena, but they have been playing a quieter, behind-the-scenes role, supporting a range of liberal causes from environmentalism to lesbian and gay rights to socially responsible investing. They have been writing policy briefs and position statements and donating to these causes,” Lichterman says.

“Now some religious liberals see the power of the Christian right and want to reclaim Christianity’s public reputation. The Democratic Party in turn wants to encourage active Christians to create a religious stance on liberal issues, so that religious spokespersons are not always religious conservatives.”

Lichterman is the author of Elusive Togetherness: Church Groups Trying To Bridge America’s Divisions. Last month, he published a study, “Religion and the Construction of Civic Identity,” which examined how people of different religious groups, who share many of the same tenets of faith, still have a difficult time working together on community projects.