What Forces Turned American Evangelicals to the Right?
 Today, Christian Evangelicals are seen as reliable supporters of conservative political values, but for much of the 19th century they were in the vanguard of social reforms, according to Barnard Professor Randall Balmer, who spoke in early March to a conference of theologians, seminary students and Evangelical leaders from across the country.
Balmer, the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Religion and a leading scholar on American evangelicals, told the conference at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia that Evangelicals in the United States are the only sub-group worldwide that leans to the right. He added that this group has strayed far from its roots a century ago when they "took the side of the those on the margins of society" and "animated such movements as the crusade against slavery, temperance reform, the female seminary movement and women's rights."
Balmer said several forces steered the movement toward its support for conservative causes. First, many Evangelicals began to embrace a radical Biblical interpretation at the turn of the 20 th century that changed their focus from social responsibility to winning converts. This shift tended to divide Evangelicals concerned with eternal salvation from Protestants concerned with social reform.
Communism and the creation of the Soviet Union later discredited what Balmer called "the social gospel." Many Evangelicals and Christian Fundamentalists over the next 50 years saw themselves as opponents of "godless Communists."
Racism also contributed to the shift away from Biblical mandates as few Evangelical leaders joined the Civil Rights Movement. Instead, many Christians created private religious schools throughout the South to counter newly passed legislated integration.
Balmer also concluded that feminism threatened the direction of Evangelicalism, which had a strong tradition of support for women's rights. Rather than advocating for women's legal and economic equality as they did a century before, Evangelicals in the 1970s remained largely silent and passive. Such inaction, Balmer suggested, might have contributed to extreme positions on both conservative and liberal sides.
Finally, multiculturalism made many Evangelicals uncertain of their place within society, forcing attempts to sever the separation between church and state while seeking preferential treatment from the government over other religions. But, said Balmer, "relying on government interference for school prayer or vouchers or the Ten Commandments runs the risk of dependence on government for legitimization as well as trivialization of the faith."
Balmer suggested that Evangelicals might reconsider their blind allegiance to hard right politics. "As citizens of a democratic society, a place where faith has flourished as nowhere else, should Evangelicals stand by and watch the erosion of our civil liberties? Or contribute to the collapse of the line between church and state, the very line that has protected the faith from trivialization and ensured such a salubrious religious culture?"
—Jo Kadleck
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