It’s OK to be a Christian conservative

I’m approaching 40, which means I came of age at a time in American evangelicalism where putting distance between conservative politics and Christianity was a very, very popular trend. It is not an exaggeration to say that one of the defining hallmarks of my evangelical adolescence and early career experience was defined by not being “one of those” types of evangelicals—a James Dobson or Jerry Falwell-style evangelical. The assumption was that an association with conservative politics would repel potential converts. “God was neither a Republican nor Democrat” was the rallying cry. Thus arose “Third Way” evangelicalism, a sociological-but-disguised-as-theological cosmopolitanism that assured us that Christianity stood above all earthly powers, whether left or right.

There was an air of rebellion in resisting the supposedly troglodytic and rigid form of conservative Christianity linked with the Religious Right. Enlightened Christianity stood above all earthly politics, which is true insofar as Christianity is a transcendent judge of all earthly political regimes. Advocates of this approach believed they were merely untethering Christianity from partisan politics (which is commendable, on the one hand), but there was also an understanding that a less-partisan Christianity would be more successful at evangelizing unbelievers. There was also the injection of ambiguity, the idea that left and right were equally an affront to God’s apolitical kingdom (which is not true, I would argue). That no earthly kingdom can represent God’s kingdom does not mean that various political ideologies are equally wrong in their revolt against God’s law. During this era of evangelicalism, the highest aspiration for a culturally learned evangelicalism was that a well-known elite (most likely a political liberal) would come to this de-politicized faith, thus lending to Christianity a sort of cultural legitimacy that many strove for.

There are positives to commend in this approach. There are ways that partisanship can become too much. Christian faith, after all, is not about temporal gain or power. It is fundamentally about redemption and union with Christ. But nearing age 40 as I am, I want to make peace with something that my late-twentysomething faith would have tried to resist: It is really OK to be a politically conservative Christian and not be embarrassed about it. Just own it. Maybe, after all, I am just a second-generation card-carrying member of the Religious Right. Many of us need a permission slip to say this out loud because, for a very long time, we were told this fusion of faith and politics was “idolatrous” at worst and, at best, unattractive to those we were trying to see come to faith.

This permission slip came to me after the new Pew Religious Landscape Study was released last week. This study is the unofficial gold standard of American religious demography. One important data point stood out: If one identifies as a Christian, there is a far higher likelihood that one has what is considered “conservative” politics in our context. The reverse is also true: The more one identifies as politically liberal, the less likely one is to identify as Christian. A lot of further analysis could be offered, but I want to dispel one common line of critique: The criticism that it harms Christianity when Christians are too intertwined with the Republican Party is shown to be the exact opposite of the truth in this study. In fact, one could potentially see how conservative politics may be an on-ramp to Christian belief while liberal politics may be an off-ramp to Christian belief. From the study’s data, it is simply a false narrative that conservative politics harms Christian witness. More explanation is required for why many Christians identify as conservative while they don’t as liberal. I do not think it is merely coincidental.

Has anyone ever heard of someone who authentically converted to orthodox Christian belief, and that conversion resulted in left-wing zealotry? Has anyone become a born-again Christian and turned more pro-abortion? I’ve never heard of that. I have heard, however, of individuals and know individuals who were formerly progressive in their politics becoming Christians and adopting beliefs that now code as conservative in our culture. Conservative dispositions seem to move in the direction of Christian inclination more naturally than liberal dispositions while it is also true that Christian beliefs code more naturally into what our culture considers more conservative political convictions. There is no reason to be upset about this relationship. All it reveals is the way that faith shapes our worldview. After all, the connection that bridges the relationship between religion and politics is this discipline called ethics. Where one grounds one’s beliefs is going to have tremendous authority in shaping their ethical convictions which in turn shape their political convictions.

I wrote an essay last year at National Review on why conservatism better aligns with Christian belief. There are parallel belief structures between conservatism and Christianity making them share an affinity without being synonymous. Conservative belief structures have an architecture that resembles patterns of Christian belief. This is not simply a matter of a person politicizing his faith, as critics of linking Christianity and conservatism say, but rather that the species of conservatism and Christianity share a genus in prioritizing transcendence, objective moral law, ordered liberty, and natural institutions like family and nation. Christian beliefs tend to be more aligned with many tenets of conservative beliefs. Conservatism can be a gateway into Christianity. It’s our job as Christians to open those gates and not leave them merely with the political architecture, but the fullness of the Christian faith and a relationship with God through Christ.

As I have grown older, I have learned that the bogeymen of the Religious Right were virtually correct in all of their concerns. I did not know that these concerns about cultural decline would be an on-road for the gospel’s advance with those more inclined to share a common concern in their shared culture’s decline.

This is a crucial insight for evangelicals. The Pew study suggests that our evangelistic efforts may be more fruitful when directed toward those with conservative inclinations rather than those steeped in progressive ideology. While evangelism should be occurring in both directions, the data point from Pew suggests that much of Third Way evangelicalism’s fascination with politically liberal elites has led us to miss a harvest more amenable to Christian truth claims with those on our right. This is another way of saying that conservative beliefs that Christians have may be a form of pre-evangelism for those who have conservative convictions but not the Christian faith.

Maybe we should not apologize for being conservative Christians after all.