United We Stand?

Although the Democratic Party has recently been able to attract an unusually high percentage of Evangelical support for President Obama and his platform, this support may prove rather ephemeral with the passing of the new $787 billion economic stimulus package. According to Tom Strode of the Southern Baptist Convention, evangelicals oppose this act on many fronts – particularly in claims that it will promote rationed healthcare, discriminate against faith on school campuses, and spend too much in areas that will not immediately stimulate the economy. Granted, this last point is a view that certainly isn’t unique to Evangelicals – many people believe that the stimulus will not do what it’s intended – but it’s not a surprise that a plan that expands the reach of the federal government would be opposed by this group. The preoccupations about healthcare and schooling are voiced stronger in this article: ethics leader Richard Land contends that, “there are a lot of things that are disturbing in this bill… but if I were to single out one thing that is most disturbing it would be the $1.1 billion to create a superstructure of rationed health care to the sick and elderly.” His worries are lodged in the new Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research that is to be organized, which, like the (socialized) British system, is designed to promote healthcare treatments that are cost-effective over those proven to be superior methods of medical treatment. Basically the new council will either “grant or deny healthcare based on whether it is cost effective” and, “kill health care… as far as quality.”

One encounters an uncanny feeling of déjà vu when reviewing the opposition to educational provisions: the stimulus allows funding to go to private colleges and universities, but prohibits funding for facilities used for sectarian instruction or religious worship. While this isn’t actually a change in policy since the Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, the sentiments being harvested in Evangelical groups now mirror those that brought about the rise of the Religious Right in the late 1960s. William Martin explains in his book, With God on Our Side, that the Religious Right originated as a response from conservative Christians to new government policies removing the tax-exempt status that many private Christian schools enjoyed. The threat of higher tuition and school closures with the new burden of taxation manifested itself to conservative Christians as a threat to their ability to practice their way of life, and so, desperate for a return to the old status quo, this group saw no other choice but to involve itself in politics by becoming what is known as the Religious Right. This translates to a modern-day concern that schools without financial aid from the government will prove unable to maintain themselves, and Christians will need to send their children to secular schools. History suggests here that the rallying points that Evangelicals have found within the economic stimulus may be enough for a strong revival of the Religious Right and a return of religious value-voters to the Republican Party.

Speaking of expanding government influence, I can foresee the $500,000 cap on executive salaries causing outrage among Evangelicals as well. While the number of impacted families is small, this provision puts America on track to becoming a more socialized nation, and could rekindle a certain paranoia that Jerry Falwell, cofounder of the Moral Majority, explained the Christian Right once maintained about Communism inflicting American families. With a cap on the amount some Americans will be able to spend and more controls over schooling and healthcare, some may begin to feel that they are rapidly losing control of the ability to make their own life choices or teach principles unlike those off of which our government acts to their children.

A dichotomy has already manifested itself in the distribution of votes on the stimulus. The House voted 246-183 in favor, but no Republicans approved. In the Senate, the stimulus passed 60-38; with 3 Republicans and 55 Democrats supporting it and no Democrats in opposition. As the stimulus is implemented, outcry will only become louder; surely change won’t be visible immediately, so widespread panic and desperation will lead to more extreme activism. James Morone, author of Hellfire Nation, outlines the pattern of widespread panic unifying the masses under morality to raise opposition to the status quo. It appears that this is already beginning to take place over faster forms of communication like the internet. Several sources have also indicated recently that Christian Churches have seen swelling attendance rates due to recent economic disparity. According to Life Christian Church in New Jersey, “prayer requests have doubled – almost all of them aimed at getting or keeping jobs.” If people can be coerced into attending church in hopes of reviving their finances, it’s likely that they’ll listen to Evangelicals’ opinions about the economic stimulus and follow suit.

The pocketbook, as William Martin points out, is a fierce motivator in politics, as is the need for security. An economic crisis is one of the best things that could happen for the Religious Right seeking support for their political agenda. My prediction is that history will repeat itself; the Religious Right will not wane in the near future as some have predicted from the outcome of the election, it will utilize the economic stimulus as a rallying point for Evangelical involvement in politics. Can Obama's call for unity and cooperation prevail over the prevalent feelings of panic and desperation that our economic crisis invokes? I think it would take too much for one man – even the President – to get people to override their nature in favor of cooperation.

Today in class, we spent some time discussing chapter 15 of James A. Morone’s Hellfire Nation. The class noted that Morone emphasized drugs and crime as the pertinent issues involved in the organization of the Christian Right, unlike other authors, such as William Martin and Seth Dowland, who focus on factors like abortion, gay rights, and feminism. In an attempt to explain the cause of this difference, one student offered a particularly interesting critique of Morone, suggesting that he unnecessarily used race as the basis for historical discriminatory practices. Specifically, my classmate cited the example of Moron’s statistical evidence regarding an increase in incarceration rates during Reagan’s presidency that reflected a racial bias towards black men and Hispanics (Morone, p. 456). He pointed out that Morone could have made his argument just as strongly by using economic classes rather than racial minorities. This is an astute observation that leads us to consider how language has shifted from employing a difference among racial groups to emphasizing differences due to economic status.
Our readings of Martin Luther King and Jerry Falwell have revealed this shift in rhetoric. During the civil rights movement, King’s language demanded racial equality. Then later in the 1970’s, Falwell began to promote a moral sentiment that did not attack racial inequality, but rather focused on the decaying morality of certain Americans, unintentionally revealing his economic class bias. In Listen America, Falwell was somewhat insensitive toward poorer families that relied on working mother, chastising these women for neglecting their children (Falwell, p. 108). The subtle shift from race talk to class talk becomes even more apparent in the 21st century. In the current election, Barack Obama claims that the nation is entering a post-racial era and his policies toward issues that were once predicated on a discussion of racial inequalities now uses language focused on gaps among economic classes rather than racial groups.
Recently, in the third presidential debate, the candidates offered their opinions of the D.C. school voucher program. The Washington Post article explains that this program allows students from low-income family backgrounds to apply taxpayer money towards private school tuition. The eligibility of the recipients of these vouchers depends on their families’ economic class rather than their racial identities. This program grants $7,500 to about 1,903 children from low-income families.
There has been a shift in political attention from “leveling the playing field” among races toward economic classes. But, this is not to suggest that race and class are mutually exclusive. The D.C. school voucher program has a primary goal of providing equal educational opportunities for poor D.C. residents. Yet, according to the 2006 U.S. census racial minorities make up more than 60% of the D.C. population. Furthermore, the same 2006 statistics show that D.C. ranks second only to Mississippi as having the greatest percentage of families living below the poverty level (link).
So, if we can agree that race and economic class are closely linked, then the next question is why has a discussion of inequalities shifted from using race as a factor in gaps between groups toward using economic status.