This Is Not What “A Bridge Too Far” Looks Like

Last week Christianity Today published an article by Jeremy Weber declaring that Roy Moore Was ‘a Bridge Too Far’ for Alabama Evangelicals. This seemed somewhat odd because I happen to know that exit polls found that 80% of white evangelicals voted for Roy Moore. That certainly doesn’t sound like a bridge too far. That’s the same margin of white evangelical support for Trump (and greater than the margin of white evangelical support for George W. Bush).

How does Weber explain this?

“An incredible amount of evangelical Christians said this was a bridge too far.”

This is how Albert Mohler explained to CNN, live at 1 a.m., the unexpected loss of Roy Moore to Doug Jones in Alabama’s special election for US Senate. “It’s nothing less than stunning.”

As expected, the state’s white evangelicals mostly voted for the Republican candidate—by a wide 4–1 margin (80% Moore vs. 19% Jones). However, enough of the Heart of Dixie’s pro-life contingent voted instead for the Democratic candidate—1 in 4 (26% Jones vs. 72% Moore)—to help hand the pro-choice politician the surprising victory by a narrow 1.5 percentage points.

According to exit polls, 44 percent of Alabama voters Tuesday were white born-again or evangelical Christians (self-identified). In the last two elections with state-level exit polling, 2008 and 2012, their share was 47 percent—making them “the only group showing slight signs of slippage,” according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

“[Moore] lost because so many evangelicals didn’t show up,” Mohler told CNN anchor Don Lemon. “That’s the big story … what didn’t happen. You didn’t have any major pastors or evangelical leaders [in Alabama], not a single one, willing to support Roy Moore.

I’m skeptical of Mohler’s claim that “not a single” major pastor or evangelical leader in Alabama supported Moore, but we’ll let that one slide here. I’m also confused as to what the comment about the state’s pro-life contingent’s voting pattern is meant to suggest—if no fewer white evangelicals voted for the Republican candidate than normal, doesn’t it make most sense to conclude that the pro-life voters who pulled the lever for Jones were your typical conservative Democrats?

Interestingly, as a quick side note, in googling this question I learned that only 23% of individuals who indicate that they are anti-abortion say that they will only vote for a candidate that shares their views. This is far lower than I would have expected, but it undergirds my point about conservative Democrats; nationwide, 22% of Democrats state that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. This percentage is likely higher in a conservative state like Alabama.

In other words, sorry, Weber, but you cannot claim that more pro-life people than normal voted for the Democratic candidate without showing that more pro-life people than normal voted for the Democratic candidate. The single stat Weber cites seems more in line with the typical status quo than the change in voting patterns he suggests.

The only actual change present in Weber’s paragraphs above is the slight slip in white evangelical voters as a share of the electorate—44% of Alabama voters self identified as white evangelical Christians as compared to 47% in 2008 and 2012. The problem with this claim (besides the absence of 2016 exit polls for comparison) is that Alabama’s demographics are shifting. In 2000 the state was 71.1% white, non-Hispanic. By 2010 it was down to 68.5% white, and in 2016 the Census Bureau estimates that number at 65.8%. That’s a drop of nearly 3% between 2010 and 2016. And, yes, there is reason to believe that the share of the population that identifies as white evangelical Protestant is declining.

There’s another explanation for this very slight decline in evangelical voters as a percentage of the voting electorate: high turnout among African American voters. If a higher number of African Americans vote than normally do so, you will see a decline in white evangelicals as a percentage of the voting electorate even if there is no decline in the raw number of white evangelicals voting. And indeed, that appears to be what happened—African Americans make up 26.8% of the Alabama population, but last week they made up 29% of the voting public.

Oddly, Weber goes on to mention briefly that “African Americans showed up in large numbers,” but he does not address what this high turnout might mean for his boasted decline in white evangelicals’ share of the vote (his sole evidence that Moore was a “bridge too far” for evangelicals).

Weber’s article was posted in the News and Reporting section of Christianity Today’s website. Interestingly, an article posted on another section of Christianity Today’s website, The Exchange, came to a very different conclusion about last week’s election. The Exchange is run by contributing editor Ed Stetzer, who often publishes guests posts by a variety of pastors, leaders, and thinkers. In this particular article, How #BlackWomen Saved Evangelicalism, African American author and thinker John C. Richards, Jr., laid out this argument:

The Alabama Senate election was many things to many people, but one of them impacts evangelicals directly. You see, yesterday’s election was a monumental moment for evangelicalism.

Yesterday, evangelicalism found itself at a cultural crossroads. A Roy Moore victory would support the narrative that, when it comes to politics, many evangelicals have all but thrown morality out the door for the sake of values voting (the irony).

Exit poll numbers, on the surface, seem troubling. When asked if they considered themselves a born-again or evangelical Christian, 80% of Moore’s supporters answered affirmatively. Evangelicalism—at least those who self-identify as evangelicals—was in line for another reckoning.

Saving the Day

Instead, Black voters, many of whom don’t self-identify as evangelicals (though are deeply committed to Christ), stepped in to save the day. Overall, exit polls showed that 96% of Alabama’s Black voters voted for Doug Jones.

And Black women led the charge.

In fact, it might be safe to say that #BlackWomen saved evangelicalism, with 98% of Black women voters in the state voting for Jones (93% of Black men voted for Jones).

Today, at the very least we can admit: Black Votes Matter.

It’s interesting what a little bit of perspective can do to you. Weber, a white man, looked at the results and saw white evangelicals declaring Moore a bridge too far by staying home (a claim he provided no solid evidence to support). Richards, an African American, looked at the same results and saw black women saving evangelicalism by showing up and voting en masse against Moore.

If my read is correct, Richards may be laying it on a bit lightly, possibly to ensure that his article would be acceptable by the largely white editorial team at Christianity Today. After all, Weber’s argument appears to be that black women saved evangelicalism … from evangelicals. Notice that Richard states what Weber did not—that Moore’s support base was overwhelmingly made up of evangelicals. In fact, exit polls suggest that 74% of those who voted for Moore were white evangelicals.

A bridge too far for evangelicals indeed.

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