The following editorial really analyzes well what drives evangelicals and why the Democrats don't understand them. It also gives Democrats good advice for capturing the evangelical votes. Some quotes:
After all, evangelicals are nothing new on the American political landscape. In the 19th century, most of the so-called mainline Protestant churches were evangelical in their commitment to a traditional Christian view of faith and morals. Their evangelicalism had deep roots in English Puritanism or in the Wesleyan revival of the 18th century.
Evangelicals were never merely orthodox. Their passion for classical Christian doctrine was fused with an equal passion for personal renewal and social reform. Like the Puritans before them, evangelicals were addicted to good works. They built schools, hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens and rescue missions. In many wings of evangelical Protestantism, revivalism and social reform were two aspects of the same religious impulse.
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In the 1940s and 1950s, evangelicalism began to undergo a renewal. Prominent evangelical leaders like Billy Graham rejected the negative fundamentalist mind-set. Evangelicals increasingly realized that they no longer stood in complete opposition to all strains of liberal theology or every idea articulated by secularists.
Evangelicalism became more at home in the world. It sent its sons and daughters to elite schools such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford. It rediscovered common areas of agreement with mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics. In short, it became more and more diverse, less and less easy to characterize. Evangelicalism now covers a broad spectrum of religious belief and practice from the fundamentalist fringe to socially (though not theologically) liberal activists.
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Democrats like to regard themselves as more cosmopolitan than Republicans. But they have been woefully unsophisticated in their analysis of evangelicals, whom they tend to paint in monochromatic hues. Evangelicals seem to them to belong to an alien "retro" America, whose values they do not share.
In point of fact there always have been, and still are, evangelicals in the Democratic Party, including former President Jimmy Carter, who once caused distress in the media by announcing he was "born again." At least 22 percent of self-identified evangelicals voted for John Kerry, a number buoyed by black evangelicals, who vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates.
Unfortunately for Kerry, evangelical support for Democrats has eroded since 2000, even among blacks and Hispanics, but especially among evangelicals for whom abortion and gay marriage trump all other considerations.
However, this electoral setback is no reason for Democrats to walk away from a tough debate over values. People who love the Bible know that it has hard things to say about anyone who fails to take care of the poor and powerless. Democrats believe that at their best they are a party that does precisely that - protects people who cannot protect themselves. It is certainly a starting point for a values conversation with evangelicals.
Read the whole thing. Hat Tip: Christianity Today Blog
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