Stumping God: Reagan, Carter, and the Invention of a Political Faith

1. Religion and American Conservatism: A Rhetorical History, 1944–1979

11 religion And AmeriCAn ConServAtiSm A Rhetorical History, 1944–1979 1 This chapter asks a simple but important question: in what ways was the conservative political movement in America also a religious movement prior to the 1980 presidential election? I ask this question in an attempt to determine whether the broader development of post-1980 religious politics was simply the result of conservatives establishing hegemony in the Republican Party, thereby establishing a permanent role in presidential elections, or whether overtly religious politics was something new even for self-described political conservatives, a tactic employed first in 1980 that proved effective enough as a political tool to be utilized in perpetuity. As I demonstrate , prior to Ronald Reagan’s late-1970s efforts to ally the movement conservatives for whom he had long spoken with the distinctly religious conservatives who began then to emerge as a political force, the conservative political movement was not a particularly religious movement—at least not with the sort of born-again flavor it developed post-1980—either in its core propositions or in its efforts to expand throughout the post–World War II era. In most cases the rhetoric of American political conservatism was secular in nature—sometimes ardently so—and focused, in its popular forms, preponderantly on issues of economics and anticommunism. It was, on the surface, more clearly the ancestor of contemporary libertarianism and hawkishness, much more than the religious right. But bubbling underneath the surface prior to 1980 were some important religious elements that merit consideration. These components did not dominate the movement , and for a host of reasons the movement’s leaders and primary rhetors did not necessarily want them to, but they did in retrospect provide some precedent for Reagan’s eventual efforts to bridge long-standing tensions 12 g Stumping god among self-described conservatives. Some of the movement’s formulators, as I demonstrate here, foreshadowed religious conservatives’ eventual alignment with the movement by developing some metaphysical principles and basic rhetorical contours that had the potential to connect with conservative Christian theologies. But not until Reagan began organizing for the 1980 campaign did these potentials become realized. The upshot is that we can judge Reagan’s invention of a thoroughly religious discourse in 1980 to be a landmark development, part of an effort aimed at converting to the conservative and Republican causes the increasing number of voters—especially evangelicals, but other religious conservatives as well—whose attitudes toward politics emerged primarily from religious belief. This is important, on the one hand, because it altered American conservatism and grew the Republican Party. But that is only part of the story, and secondary to this book’s broader narrative. At the same time he was changing the face of American conservatism and the GoP, Reagan was also helping to alter the conduct and very character of American politics. That, of course, will be the subject of subsequent chapters, but for now it is important to establish that as he sought votes in 1980, Reagan was not simply spouting the party line or saying what he and other conservatives had always said. He was instead crafting a new discourse, or, perhaps more accurately, altering the use of some old and sometimes rejected elements of conservative rhetoric for new and effective purposes—with some tremendous consequences. pArAmeterS for diSCuSSion An Overview of the Conservative Movement While in subsequent chapters I thoroughly discuss the types of political engagement that were characteristic of evangelicals and other religious conservatives between World War II and 1980, for now it is sufficient simply to note that evangelical engagement during much of that era was at a minimum , and it occurred mostly outside the conservative political movement that is my focus here. Before getting too far afield in this chapter, however, it is probably worth presenting an overview and providing some basic boundaries for what I mean by the “Conservative Movement.” I should also spell out the reasons why the works I am examining here might constitute that movement’s seminal discourses. In crafting one of the most influential histories of the conservative movement, the intellectual historian George H. nash eschews, perhaps religion And AmeriCAn ConServAtiSm f 13 wisely, giving a set definition of conservatism in part because, as he sees it, “conservatives themselves have had no . . . agreed-upon definition.”1 Taking heed of nash’s caution, I too will avoid defining conservatism, instead focusing on what we...