The Great Evangelical Split?

There is a lot of talk in the blogosphere as of late that there is a great schism coming in Evangelical circles because of the Republican primary endorsements of people like the Rev. Pat Robertson (Giuliani), James Dobson (Huckabee) and the NRLC (Fred Thompson).

Liberal commentators are in a state of bliss, as this supposed "dismemberment" of the Christian Right is one of their chief goals.

Conservative commentators wonder if the influence of the Christian Right is waning because the "movement" has become more of a big-government, seize-the-power, impose-their-agenda movement akin to, well, liberal orthodoxy.  Over at National Review Online, they even use the term "Social Gospel" and "Religious Progressives" to describe the movement.

But I think there is something more afoot here from a different perspective.

The simple fact is that the successful rise of the Christian Right as a force in American politics is also their undoing (and note:  I count myself in the Christian Right).

As their influence in the Republican Party has grown, the breadth of the Christian Right has grown as well, and the "old guard" of Robertson, Dobson, et al have seen their own influence diminish.

I am convinced that James Dobson started picking fights over ideological purity in order to reassert his influence.  I think that Pat Robertson endorsed Giuliani  for the same reason.

And this is more important than ever in the middle of a war. Issues that are hot-buttons for most folks that make up the Christian Right -- abortion, gay marriage, anti-Christian bigotry, etc -- start to pale in comparison to fighting a war against a deadly enemy that would rather incinerate us than debate us.  (And no, I am talking about the Left.)

That does not mean they aren't important.  It just means those issues may not be the ones that voters coalesce around in this election.

And that means that the normal "flag bearers" for those issues need to reassert their influence.  Their influence comes from the prominence of those issues.

I think that overall, the Conservative commentators have a sound argument:  the collapse of the Christian Right will ultimately come as a result from the shift away from the "get government out of our lives" focus that dominated the Christian Right from the late 70s through the mid 1990s to a "let's use government to impose our worldview" movement that has disguised itself in the so-called Compassionate Conservatism of Mike Huckabee and George Bush.

That will be the ultimate schism that occurs in the movement, as the Christian Right's leaders fall prey to the temptation to create heaven on earth through political power.