Two other factors-
Anti-Communism
Ultra-Secularism
Yes, one can be anti-Communist & very pro-civil piety & still be a liberal or a Democrat, but it is on that side of the spectrum that those soft on/sympathetic with Communism and those for strict Church-State separation have camped.
Yes, I think we’re all familiar with the long passages where Jesus extolled the virtues of capitalism and urged his followers to submit to theocratic rule.
There has been a concerted, organized effort to coordinate Right Wing Politics & Evangelical/Fundamentalist religion. Religious Right Watch is a good source. You can read the history of the movement & keep track of current antics.
The Texas Freedom Network, currently coordinating efforts to keep Creationism out of our textbooks, has a compendium of studies; The Anatomy of Power, Texas and the Religious Right in 2006, is a hefty .pdf that names contributors & beneficiaries. On this page. (We’re on the Front Lines here, folks.)
There’s no inherent reason for Fundamentalists & Evangelical religious believers to tend to the Right. Historically, those faiths avoided politics, since they had often suffered under Established Churches. Sojourners includes many Evangelicals (& other believers & non-believers) and express their beliefs in Liberal ways. Jim Wallis, their leader, has appeared on The Daily Show–and Jon likes him in a non-ironic way…
**Why does being a born-again Christian often necessarily equate to being right-wing politically?
**
Because the Republicans made the incredibly stupid mistake of getting in bed with the religious extremists to get their votes. In my lifetime, both the Republicans and the Democrats have done some incredibly stupic things. This is the top of the list for the Republicans, IMO.
Why does being a born-again Christian often necessarily equate to being right-wing politically?
It doesn’t. I am an ELCA Lutheran. The politics of my synod, its leaders, and the national body, are well to the left of center. They have been referred to as “the ecumenical wing of the Democratic party”.
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are both born-again Christians by virtue of their baptisms.
The mainstream national media, who are mostly secular, think that religious belief makes you weird. Therefore they highlight religious belief in their opponents as a way of signaling who is outside the mainstream, and ignore or downplay it with those they want to build up.
Reagan was a Christian and didn’t go to church; therefore he was a hypocrite. Obama is a Christian who doesn’t go to church, therefore he is moderate and reasonable. Etc.
Regards,
Shodan
Cite.
Regards,
Shodan
This correlation only applies to white Americans during the past one hundred years. If you look at a larger population group it’s not true.
I know a few born-again people who are well to the left of me, and I think the abortion distinction is pretty much it. Their church’s theology doesn’t read prohibition on abortion into the Bible, so they are pro-choice as a matter of choice (as it were).
I think that the term “born-again,” as used in these contexts, tends to refer to the Evangelical American Protestant denominations (and the shifts in the 60s and 70s) and not so much to the “mainline” demoninations (like the ELCA, UMC, or PCUSA, etc.).
So, Clinton (as a Southern Baptist) probably counts as “born-again” (Carter openly does), but Obama (as a Congregationalist) probably wouldn’t.
I have a negative view of born again Christians, but not because they believe in something I do not. My view is far more biased- my dad was/is a born again Christian. He played the whole born-again gimmick simply to get in my stepmother’s pants, but never came off as religious and a year or two after getting married stopped going to church with her or doing anything ‘bible’ related alltogether.
It made me conclude that born again Christians are simply miming a conviction in a way that favors them. Maybe I’m painting them all with a broad brush; I can believe there are going to be exceptions to the rule. But for all the born again Christians I’ve seen, there was some ulterior benefit to being a Christian- redemption.
This is where I think it plays into the right-wing nature of born again Christians. See a lot of these people dont recognize or own up to their own hypocrisy. They are ‘saved’ and thus don’t believe they should be held accountable for their actions. Many times even after being born again their past negative behaviors never went away or changed, its just they have this shiny “100% Christian” label they slap on themselves, convincing others they are moral and right. Like many other groups conservatives reel in, they convince these groups of people that their problems in life are not their fault. They are saved, their sins are forgiven. They must bear the burden of living in the sins of others. The idea of apologizing for one’s own actions and genuinely changing, empathising with others, and learning and growing as a person are all seen as a sign of weakness in spirit and abandoned.
For most people political ideas come as a package with an identity. Changing identity means changing political beliefs.
The reason evangelical Christians identify as mostly comes from the hostility the leftwing has held for religion. It goes all the way back to at least the French Revolution. Jim Jones hatred of Christianity was an extreme example of the hatred those who believed in communist revolution had for religion. In modern America its most prominent manifestation was the ACLU’s crusade against religion in schools. The Christian right was a backlash against this and turned a mostly apolitical group into the rights most loyal voters.
I can see some who define BACs that way, but then again, Clinton was raised SBC & probably made his commitment early in life, whereas Obama made a conscious adult decision to give his life to Christ & so to me, they are both BACs, but Obama moreso by being a deliberate convert.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they are not profoundly, deeply, seriously wrong about some things, tho it would only be the political issues of abortion & perhaps gay rights for which they could be under church discipline, using my denomination as an example (Assemblies of God).
I wasn’t trying to make a theological point (I’m certainly sympathetic to what you’re saying). I just mean that, when used colloquially, I think that “born again” refers to membership in certain American Protestant denominations. Much like how, while all Christian denominations (that I know of) practice evangelism, the term “Evangelical Christian” refers to a specific subset.
As a counter-point, ELCA stands for Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
It may be the case that the OP assumes that opposition to abortion = right-wing, which is debatable.
Regards,
Shodan
I can post more cites later but a couple things come to mind.
According to Bob altemeyer there is overlap between right wing authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism. So people drawn to religious fundamentalism will have a lot of authoritarians (aggressive and contemptuous of the weak, fawning towards the strong, socially conservative, tolerant of inequality, etc)
Also left wing Christians are a big group. I once read (I will get the article later) that left leaning Christians are now a bigger percent of the electorate than the religious right. They just aren’t nearly as vocal or organized.
It’s a convergence of several things:
The bulk of Evangelical Christians (I’ll use that term rather than “born-again” though they are somewhat interchangeable colloquially) live in rural areas. Rural areas tend to be more conservative in general; they have a very different view on things than urban folk do - they relate to guns in a completely different way, as just one example. In many areas, there is a feeling of a tug of war for resources between urban and rural interests.
Furthermore, Republicans and Evangelicals have hitched themselves to the same wagon primarily via the wedge issue of abortion - and the Democratic party has hitched itself to the opposite wagon of abortion rights by allying itself with women’s rights groups, etc (though that hitching is not nearly so strong as the Evangelical-Republican link, IMO). Evangelicals can justify away Republicans lack of support for public welfare by saying that those sorts of things are best handled through the Church, or through other, non-governmental charitable groups. I make no judgement here whether that is a plausible position, just that it is an argument that one can make.
So if you are Evangelical, you’re almost certainly anti-abortion, and if you’re anti-abortion, you’re very likely to be Republican; it follows that Evangelicals will tend strongly to identify with the Republican party. And we all have our echo chambers; once you gravitate to a particular group this begins to be reinforced through the choices of media that your social circle consume.
While it might turn out to be a mistake by the Republicans, it is working short term. Only anecdotal evidence but many members of my extended family vote against their financial interests (they have received various government assistance benefits) in order to stop abortion, keep their guns and make sure the gays live in sin.
Well, since you addressed it to me and asked politely, I’ll respond. You see me as “born-again Christian” who is “right-wing politically”. I don’t view myself as either of those things. “Born-again” is a phrase fraught with different meanings for different Christian groups, which I don’t normally apply to myself. But I was an atheist until age 23–I’m now 31–and did convert to Christianity.
As for politics, I am a libertarian, or classical liberal if you prefer, and I usually vote for Libertarian candidates. I’m a bit confused myself about why you think the threads you linked to would make me “right-wing”. Is it right-wing to remember that communists killed millions of innocent people? Is it right-wing to even mention the President’s poll numbers? Is it right-wing to even discuss poverty?
Exactly. “Born again” does not necessarily mean “I was not a Christian at one point, and then I became one.” (And, as we’ve already seen in this thread, it can mean different things to different people.) IME, for most of those who consider themselves to be “born-again Christians”, it means that there was a specific point in time at which they made a conscious decision to accept Christ as their savior.
While this sort of decision is often discussed in the context of people who become Christians later in life, even if “born-again” parents raise their children as Christians, they would not consider their children to be “born again” until the children themselves made that conscious decision / commitment. This seems to typically happen when the children are teenagers – coincidentally, at the same sort of age that kids who are being raised in the Catholic church, or in mainstream Protestant churches, would go though the process of confirmation.
I will make the point here that, often, people with more extreme views will then cite their religion as justification for their views. In our case, in America, Christianity is the dominant religion. So citing how you are a CHRISTIAN as a defense for your strong (and questionable) views is more common.
For example, person A claims that women should be treated in a manner that makes most people go :eek:. In the absence of religion, such a view would be reprehensible. However, person A then claims that he is a Christian, and that his version of Christianity supports this reprehensible view. Suddenly others who are Christians of a similar stripe see his view as less reprehensible. Or are simply dissuaded from being critical of another Christian.