January 7, 2023

By Chuck Ardo

“Faithful discipleship and responsible citizenship require us to say “No” to those who would assert a divine imperative for any party or candidate and who claim to know with cock-sure certainty the mind of God” wrote J. Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee. No doubt he’s right.
Former President Jimmy Carter was certainly the most devout American chief executive in more than a century. He was the first “born again” president, taught Sunday school, read his Bible and prayed daily throughout his time in office. So, it comes as no surprise that the religious right rose to prominence as a result of his administration. However, it comes as a shock to learn that the christian activists who birthed the movement did so in opposition to Carter, not in support of him.

The historical record is clear. A group of African-American parents in Mississippi sued the Treasury Department to prevent three new “segregation academies”, private schools founded to circumvent integration mandated by Brown vs Board of Education. from securing full tax-exempt status.  As Randall Balmer, professor in the Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth explains “evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools.”
It is that racist movement that weaponized faith for political purposes on behalf of the Republican Party.  As early as 2004 Pew Research found “two religious variables, church attendance and born-again status, were “more strongly correlated with (Republican) party identification and presidential candidate choice...than any other social characteristic including income, education, gender, marital status, and union membership.”
Religion has played a part in our national politics throughout American history. But, never before has any political party invoked God as an ally to demonize the opposition. "God is on our side," Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake told a cheering crowd.  "We are truly fighting pure evil right now. It is evil what we are dealing with in this world. It's coming from the Left. It's coming from their spokespeople in the media,” she said.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ wife posted an ad on her twitter feed that declared that “on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter”, clearly alluding that God was on her husband’s side. Donald Trump, the thrice married adulterer and con man,  publicly portrayed himself as a “restorer of faith in the public square” and claimed that “God is on our side.”
But, as theologian Jim Wallis,  founder and editor of Sojourners magazine warns “When the voice of God is invoked on behalf of those who have no voice, it is time to listen. But when the name of God is used to benefit the interests of those who are speaking, it is time to be very careful.”  It is time to remember Abraham Lincoln’s words: “I don’t care if God is on my side. My constant hope and prayer is that I may be found upon God’s side.”