Religion

Jerry Falwell wasn't always the man most remember him to be.

The fire-and-brimstone pastor who embodied the term "Christian conservative," who, along with fellow TV evangelist Pat Robertson, gave rise to the Christian right movement that elected presidents, changed public discourse, influenced public policy and incited culture wars, once believed religion and politics should be separate.

"Believing the Bible as I do, I would find it impossible to stop preaching the pure saving gospel of Jesus Christ and begin doing anything else — including fighting communism, or participating in Civil Rights reform," Falwell told his congregation at Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1965, weeks after Bloody Sunday in Selma. "Preachers are not called to be politicians, but to be soul winners."

That changed in 1973 when Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion drove Falwell into politics. By the mid-1970s, when Jimmy Carter began to openly court religious voters, Falwell was among his confidants.

In 1979, Falwell founded the political-action group Moral Majority, which would eventually boast more than 6.5 million members. By 1980, Falwell's relationship with then-President Carter had soured to the point where the Moral Majority not only backed his opponent, Ronald Reagan, but began buying attack ads on radio stations across the South and Midwest.

Reagan won in a landslide. The next morning, when Falwell appeared before a rally at Liberty University, the Bible college he founded, the band greeted him by playing "Hail to the Chief."

The Christian Right, like Falwell himself, had stepped upon the national stage. Religion and politics would never be the same.

Though the Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989, Falwell remained an aggressive and outspoken opponent against homosexuality, abortion and pornography.

In later years, Falwell's public image was tarnished — first by accusing the purse-carrying Teletubbies character Tinky Winky of being gay and later by blaming the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on feminists, gays and liberals, a remark for which he later apologized.

When Falwell died on May 17, 2007, the Christian right movement lost its most recognizable and polarizing figure. And it has yet to fully recover. Without leadership, the movement has drifted, softening its message in an age of political correctness.

"The Christian Right has changed," says Jerry Johnston, program director for Truth Radio, a conservative Christian radio station in Oxford. "They've been influenced by the culture instead of them being influenced by the Bible and then influencing the culture."

While its causes and heroes — such as Robertson and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson — continue to inspire followers, the Christian right, as it was mobilized during the Reagan era, has experienced a recent decline, says Mark Rozell, professor in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.

"The Christian right is somewhat weakened because of the widespread discontent with the Bush presidency," he says. "Evangelicals backed Bush in the Iraq war, but what they really wanted from his presidency was more action on the social agenda."

But just because they've been disappointed and disillusioned doesn't mean the movement is going to disappear anytime soon, adds Rozell, who's written numerous books on the Christian conservative movement.

"The Christian right is in politics for the long run," he said. "People wrote it off during the Clinton era only to see the movement charge back stronger than before. People are starting to say once again that the Christian right is a spent force in U.S. politics, but a political movement is not defined by its fortunes in one election cycle."

In fact, a win on Nov. 4 by Democratic nominee Barack Obama, who's viewed as socially liberal and a threat to change existing faith-based initiatives, could be the best thing to happen to the Christian right.

"If Obama and the Democrats win, I would look for the Christian right to come roaring back," Rozell says. "Ironically, some political movements thrive when they are the opposition, and they decline when their preferred party is in power."

And that's precisely the problem, says Wayne Woods, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Oxford. An unabashed evangelical Christian, Woods agreed with many of the issues supported by Falwell's Moral Majority and the Christian right. But he disagreed that simply putting certain candidates in office was considered a success.

"If there has been a legitimate demise of the Christian right," Woods says, "if their voice isn't as excruciatingly clear today, it's because just putting candidates into office isn't getting to the core of the issues and problems of our country."

When self-professed born-again Christian George W. Bush was elected in 2000, the Christian right took a step back from the political fray, as if their work had been done, says Johnston.

"But that only stemmed the tide," he says. "The answer is for God's people to repent and live the way God tells us to live. Then we can change the culture."

Woods believes that faith in politics is a necessity because government has been given a mandate by God to function in such a way as to promote good and restrain evil.

"It's left, within that context, for the church to be the influence for righteousness," he says. "But we've essentially become spoiled by our freedom and have become generic Christians, which can lead us toward the path of powerless Christianity."

Another reason for the Christian right's diminished political profile also has a great deal to do with the mood of the culture. The once combustible public debates concerning gay rights and abortion have been replaced in the minds of voters distracted by the current economic crisis.

According to the recent National Survey of Religion and Politics poll conducted by the University of Akron, 13 percent of voters listed moral issues as their primary concern, half as many as in 2004. Among members of the Christian right, the percentage emphasizing social issues plummeted to 37 percent from 51 percent, while the portion emphasizing the economy rose to 40 percent from 18 percent in 2004.

"The problem is understanding just how the economic message fits into the equation," says Randy Brinson, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama. "With a lot of the (social) issues, it's more clear-cut, but in terms of the economy … it's hard to vote biblically."

Considered more of a moderate because of his work in social justice issues such as poverty, Brinson is a Montgomery physician rather than a minister and was named among the "New Evangelical" movement by the Washington Post. He also founded and remains chairman of Redeem the Vote — the Christian right's answer to the liberal "Rock the Vote" campaign.

"I think younger voters have to look beyond themselves and see the world and how it will be when they are raising families," he says. "Do they want the government to sanction homosexuality and the homosexual lifestyle, and what are the consequences to a society that has no boundaries on acceptable behavior?

"Once young people see the moral case made in that way, I think they embrace the idea of promoting religious expression and liberty and the sanctity of life and marriage."

Brinson concedes that for the Christian right, which he believes is often "misinterpreted" as focusing solely on abortion and homosexuality, to regain its national prominence, it must evolve its approach.

"If you continue going to the same well over and over again, there is such a thing as issue fatigue," he says. "People get tired of hearing that the sky is falling. It doesn't change the gravity of those causes, but people will eventually turn a deaf ear. We don't have to be winners of every single, solitary issue.

"What we've got to decide is how to set the policies that are best for everyone."

Falwell understood the tenuous nature of faith and politics, fearing that public favor could swing in the other direction if the wrong candidate ended up in the White House.

His sentiments, first expressed in late 1988 when Reagan was about to leave office, echo through time and speak to the heart of many within the Christian right.

"If the Democrats win," Falwell said, "I don't know what will happen to us."