Anxious Bench

Last updated on: May 3, 2012 at 8:09 pm By johnturner

The Republican Party has an evangelical problem. My very simplistic theory of American presidential politics over the past half-century is that when Republican nominees have the overwhelming support of evangelical Christians, they win. See Richard Nixon, 1968 and 1972; Ronald Reagan, 1980 and 1984; and George W. Bush, 2000 and 2004. Particularly in the 1980, 2000, and 2004 elections, evangelical backing was crucial, if not decisive. Mitt Romney at the 2007 Values Voters conference (courtesy of c.berlet/publiceye.org) One could probably... Read more

Ross Douthat’s Vanishing Christian Center

Last updated on: May 2, 2012 at 2:03 am By Thomas Kidd

In a recent New York Times column titled “Divided by God,” and more generally in his book Bad Religion, Ross Douthat laments the disappearance of the 1950s-era mainline Protestant/Roman Catholic establishment, a Christian center that once “helped bind a vast and teeming nation together.” Now, according to Douthat, we have become a “nation of heretics…in which most people still associate themselves with Christianity but revise its doctrines as they see fit, and nobody can agree on even the most basic definitions of what Christian faith should... Read more

Romney’s Real Evangelical Problem

Ross Douthat’s Vanishing Christian Center