Does the GOP have a lock on God?Page 2 of 2 -- This year, the political battles are being fought along much the same "Red" and "Blue" lines they were two centuries ago. In the 1840s the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians -- America's biggest denominations at the time -- split in half along North-South lines, over abolition and Biblical literalism. When war finally came, Union soldiers -- as "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" attests -- fought with as much religious zeal as their Confederate brothers, who used the Bible's innumerable passages condoning slavery to justify their own cause. Then as modern industrial, urban America was born in the Civil War's aftermath, the country's white Protestant majority once again divided. The mostly Northern Social Gospelers embraced science, industrialization, immigration, and urban pluralism as the way to Winthrop's "City on the Hill" while the mostly Southern and Midwestern Fundamentalists struck back in fury, against "Darwin, dancing, and decolletage" -- all the urban (and urbane) depravities that to them spelled the coming of Armageddon.
But hasn't the country's religious landscape changed since then? Hasn't the "religious right" been growing significantly? It's true that roughly 40 percent of Americans now identify themselves as "born-again" Christians -- but that's not synonymous with "religious right." First, about a quarter of those "born-agains" are African-American Democrats, while another significant percentage are Hispanic Democrats, who may worship as Pentecostal Protestants or as "charismatic" Catholics. Even among white evangelicals -- who make up 60 percent of the "born-again" -- one in five regularly vote Democratic. As for the claims of dramatic growth among conservative denominations (and "collapse" of the more liberal Mainline Protestants), more recent surveys instead tell a story of remarkable stability over the past 40 years, at least in terms of religious affiliation. White Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, and Roman Catholics today each make up about a quarter of the population, with African-American Protestants adding another 10 percent, Jews and Mormons 2 percent each, and Orthodox Christians and "other religions" 1 percent each -- roughly the same breakdown as when Kennedy was President. The difference is that while "affiliation" has remained stable, "attendance" hasn't. As the baby boomers came of age millions delayed marriage (or never married or soon divorced) and had fewer children. Consequently, Mainline churches did lose significant numbers of active -- and especially younger -- members up through the 1980s . Similarly, regular attendance among Euro-American Catholics has also declined, and been only partly made up by Hispanic and Asian immigrants. By contrast, 71 percent of white evangelicals report worshiping weekly. That helps explain why there's been a growing Republican majority among "frequent attenders" generally, while among the "less frequent attenders" margins remain solidly Democratic. But that's far from meaning that the Republicans will own the religious vote this year. In fact, 1960 may prove a more interesting guide to 2004 than 2000, because this year (like 1960) an incredibly tight race will be decided by just a few voters in just a few states. White evangelical voters are now solidly Republican, but they're also concentrated in "red" GOP states certain to vote for Bush. This year, the big key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida all have bigger Catholic than evangelical populations. And that could make this year's "religious vote" a surprise. In 1960, 81 percent of America's Roman Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy, a phenomenal partisan swing they've never repeated. That won't happen this year. But if only a few thousand more Catholics than usual opt in each of those swing states for a Catholic Democrat over a "born-again" Republican, it could easily turn the vaunted power of the Religious Right upside down -- and set America on a new political course.
Richard Parker teaches religion, politics, and public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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