The Christian Right Is Dead. The Religious Right Killed It.
The first story is the one we conservative evangelicals told ourselves: Religious conservatism arose as a force in the United States in response to the hedonism of the sexual revolution, the cultural intolerance of the New Left and the threat of the Soviet Union, an explicitly atheistic, Marxist empire.
According to this narrative, the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973 was the seminal domestic event that inspired Christian conservatism. It represented a deadly corruption of our Constitution in service of a culture of sexual convenience in which human life was subordinate to sexual pleasure.
The response of the Christian right was both political and personal. That approach could be boiled down to a single sentence: Elect people of good personal character who will defend human life and religious liberty.
The movement placed a heavy emphasis on constitutional fidelity, seeing the Constitution as a bulwark against authoritarian overreach. And during Bill Clinton's presidency it staked out the clearest possible ground on personal character.
As the Southern Baptist Convention declared at its annual meeting in 1998, 'We urge all Americans to embrace and act on the conviction that character does count in public office, and to elect those officials and candidates who, although imperfect, demonstrate consistent honesty, moral purity and the highest character.'
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