Wonder-Working Power

The roots and the reach of the religious right.

Daniel McCarthy from the December 2006 issue

(Page 3 of 11)

First Things for those who today use such language in the context of President Bush’s war on civil liberties. And Christian conservatives no longer feel so despondent about democracy. The president has assiduously cultivated their support, an effort rewarded in 2004 when nearly 80 percent of evangelical Protestant voters and 52 percent of Catholics voters cast their ballots for Bush. o:p> /o:p>

In the wake of that election we’ve /span> span class= "CRbreakgrafline">seen an avalanche of literature purporting to explain the revival of the religious right and its implications for the country. Patrick Hynes’ In Defense of the Religious Right celebrates Christian conservatives’ power, even while claiming Christian conservatives are harried and besieged, ever on the defensive against an encroaching liberalism. Damon Linker, on the other hand, argues in The Theocons that it’s the religious right, and the First Things coterie in particular, that’s doing the encroaching. Each gets only half the story right. Hynes fails to prove that Christian conservatives are the persecuted majority he thinks they are, while Linker is persuasive about the aggressive agenda of the religious right. But Hynes better explains where Christian conservatives’ real power lies—not with a Catholic elite, as Linker would have it, but with the mass of evangelical voters loyal to the party of Lincoln. o:p>