Falling From Grace: Partisan Prophets Plummeted At The Polls

Just over six weeks ago, the Rev. Jerry Falwell told a group of pastors at a breakfast in Washington, D.C., that they should have no worries about a Democratic takeover of Congress. Falwell assured the crowd that the Republicans would remain in power.

As he put it, "I think the Lord's going to take care of that."

Trust me when I say I don't believe anything that Falwell says, but many people do. Those people must now have concluded that God is a nominal Democrat (after all, only a one-vote margin in the Senate), is against banning abortion (South Dakota voters rejected a referendum proposing a near-total ban) and is a supporter of more funds for stem-cell research (as provided in a Missouri referendum).

Religious conservatives had been convinced up until Election Day that the powerful machine they had built would defend enough incumbents to preserve their access to power from the White House to Capitol Hill. This year, instead of merely taking marching orders from national groups like Focus on the Family or the latest Falwell incarnation of the Moral Majority, Religious Right activists in places like Ohio ran grassroots-oriented campaigns to enlist local pastors to promote favored candidates.

I told The New York Times back in 2005 that this ground-level strategy was particularly dangerous for those of us who disagree with the goals of the Religious Right. Leaders of one group even used my comment on some of their literature to buttress what they were doing.

During the run-up to Election Day, AU continued to challenge church-based politicking. As part of the promotional tour for my book Piety & Politics, I had a chance to debate Ohio Religious Right leader Russell Johnson and several of his colleagues at a forum in Columbus in early October. Pastor Johnson led efforts to keep Republican gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell visible in evangelical churches and promote the re-election of U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine. At the forum, Johnson was upbeat about his program of energizing the conservative base.

Johnson assured me that his church was not going to break tax laws - even though several complaints had been filed against his operation earlier this year by fellow clergy in the state. Undaunted, his group never missed a beat, working right until Nov. 7.

The election results must have come as a shock: Democrat Ted Strickland beat Blackwell in a blowout, 60 percent to 37 percent. The GOP's DeWine was knocked out by U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown by 12 points.

The Religious Right lost some other champions as well, including two senators on its short list for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination: Virginia's George Allen and Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum. Ernest Istook, who as a congressman constantly advocated a constitutional amendment to bring governmentsupported prayer back to public schools, garnered only 33 percent of the vote as he attempted to become Oklahoma's governor. U.S. Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana, author of the bill in the House of Representatives to deny successful litigant lawyers any attorney fees or costs in certain church-state cases, lost his seat, as did Kentucky's Anne Northup, accused of exploiting the "faith-based" initiative to get pastors to convince congregants to support Republicans.

Does this mean the Religious Right is now a toothless tiger? Sadly, no. Although I am not a hunter, I understand tigers who feel threatened just fight harder. Indeed, on Nov. 8 many in the Religious Right began arguing that the GOP had lost because it hadn't placated religious conservatives enough! In other words, if the Republicans had supported even more extreme measures, they would have won re-election.

Political pundits are having a field day speculating about why the Republican base, which consists heavily of farright fundamentalists, could not pull the party through this year. There is even some evidence of a small shift in the evangelical vote away from the GOP. Although not a huge change percentage-wise, this development might have played a significant role in some of the closer races.

Analysts wonder if the revelations in David Kuo's book Tempting Faith played a part, or if evangelicals were despondent over the scandal that engulfed the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, just before the election.

It's hard to say definitely because so many dynamics come into play in a national election. For what it's worth, my analysis is much simpler: The Religious Right long ago hitched its fortunes to the Republican Party. This year, scandals over the Jack Abramoff affair and the Mark Foley indiscretions hit the party hard. At the same time, more people began to turn against the war in Iraq. President George W. Bush's rating hit toxic levels. As the OOP's fortunes plummeted, so did the Religious Right's.

This should be an object lesson to people like Falwell, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, James Dobson and others on the dangers of tying your faith to one political party. When that party falls into the mud, your religion gets dragged down there, too. Both are left there to wallow, often unable to break free of the quicksand-like effect of the muck.