Evangelicals and the State

Before his fall from grace, the cherubic Beltway operator Ralph Reed was one of the most influential evangelicals in American politics. So it was significant when Reed, a former executive director of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, described the religious right as part of an anti-statist “Leave Us Alone Coalition” alongside taxpayers, gun owners, and property rights activists. In his 1996 book Active Faith, Reed wrote that “most of the tension between moralists and libertarians was overstated” and agreed with then–House Majority Leader Dick Armey that social conservatives and free marketeers “are singing the same song” in “freedom’s choir.”

Well, it looks like the choir has broken up. At this point, one of the few things moralists and libertarians seem to agree about is that they don’t like Ralph Reed, whose role in the Jack Abramoff scandal managed to offend both tribes. (When Abramoff’s clients in the casino industry wanted to squash some potential competition, Reed helpfully launched an anti-gambling crusade and directed it at the appropriate target.) Armey has become a pungent critic of James Dobson and other “self-appointed Christian leaders” whom he views as “big government sympathizers who want to impose their version of ‘righteousness’ on others.” The New York Sun’s Ryan Sager published an entire book, The Elephant in the Room, about the conflict between evangelicals and libertarians, charging that the former are turning the Republican Party into a “God and government coalition.” The maverick conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan is given to similar complaints about “big government Christianism.”

W. James Antle III

This is a reasonably good assessment of Christian Libertarianism. Time to start the local chapter. I figure I can count on Robert, but Andy still has too much GOP blood in him. Strother?