D. G. Hart. From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011. 237 pp. $25.00.

If you ask virtually any pollster, he will likely argue that American evangelicals can be found at the epicenter of political conservatism. This is certainly the picture painted by cable news channels, segments of talk radio, and not a few leftwing authors. Darryl Hart wants to explode this widely held axiom. In Hart’s thinking, evangelicals are not conservatives and never really have been. In his provocative new book From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism, Hart makes the case that evangelicals are for the most part interlopers within authentic conservatism, which he identifies with traditionalist conservatives such as Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and many of the early editors of National Review.

Lay of the Land

Hart contends that evangelicals have never been authentic conservatives. Evangelicals tend to vote for the GOP, but they do so for dubious reasons. They affirm traditional social values, to be sure, but they remain largely indifferent to conservative first principles. Evangelicals often yawn at conservative debates about American order and polity. They are quintessentially modern, which sets them at odds with conservative intellectuals who are mostly critical of modern society. Hart argues that,

[E]vangelical political thought developed independently from the debates that shaped modern conservatism. Instead of relying on conservative insights about order, liberty, and the health of civil society, evangelicals habitually resorted to their Bibles. Indeed, for evangelicals, Scripture was a better guide to the affairs of the United States than the demands of republicanism, constitutionalism, federalism, or the balance of powers (16).  

Hart believes that evangelical idealism is actually more akin to the utopianism of the Left than the more measured instincts of the Right. His thesis is simply that American evangelicals are not conservative and have much to learn from traditionalist conservatism (17). Hart’s book is meant to show evangelicals a better way.

Inconsistent Views on Government

Since Hart is a historian, most of his monograph attempts a historical explanation for who evangelicals are and how they became erroneously identified with American conservatism. He rightly explodes the myth that evangelicals were indifferent to politics prior to the rise of the Religious Right. However, unlike traditionalist conservatives, evangelicals were inconsistently committed to limited government. When it came to the threat of socialism or communism, evangelicals pushed back against government expansion. But when it came to legislating against moral vices such as alcohol consumption or championing teacher-led prayer in public schools, evangelicals morphed into preachy advocates of big government. 

Hart sees many reasons for this evangelical commitment to a big government moral conservatism. He claims evangelicals such as Carl Henry advocated a form of social gospel, albeit a version that was less liberal than the kind found among mainline Protestants. At their core, evangelicals were activists, as they had been since at least the Second Great Awakening. Many evangelicals still longed for the Protestant cultural hegemony that characterized much of 19th-century America. They were suspicious of Roman Catholics and other groups mostly comprising non-Anglo immigrants, including those who were major player in the rise of the postwar conservative coalition. Evangelicals showed little interest in traditionalist conservative Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.

Younger evangelicals were even less conservative than their parents. In the 1960s and 1970s, younger scholars such as Richard Mouw, Richard Pierard, and David Moberg explicitly critiqued mainstream conservatism, advocating a socially progressive agenda that they believed arose from the Scriptures. These anti-conservative evangelicals were forerunners of the Religious Left, which includes individuals like Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, and arguably Ron Sider. Historians Donald Dayton and Randall Balmer provided a historical justification for left-of-center evangelicals, casting evangelicals as an inherently left-of-center cultural renewal movement. Hart is convinced that in the early years of the Obama administration, a new generation of younger evangelical are flocking to the Religious Left in droves.

While many evangelical scholars were tracking leftward, grassroots evangelicals were mobilizing for the Republican Party. In the late 1970s, the Religious Right joined traditionalist conservatives and ex-liberal neo-conservatives in a broader coalition that energized the GOP and captured the White House in 1980. Jerry Falwell was the most important public figure in the early Religious Right, while Francis Schaeffer provided intellectual motivation for evangelicals and fundamentalists to engage the political arena. Many within the Religious Right were galvanized by a providentialist reading of American religious history that was countered by mainstream historians (including trained evangelical historians) but remained popular among rank-and-file evangelicals. Pat Robertson tried to bring the Religious Right into the White House in 1988, but his campaign fizzled as he sounded increasingly like a preacher rather than a president.

Hart also criticizes evangelical thinkers who have attempted to motivate their co-religionists into political engagement. Some such as Charles Colson and James Skillen were relatively measured and nuanced, and for that reason perhaps refused to uncritically identify evangelicals with conservatism. Ralph Reed was quick to identify evangelicals with conservatism, which he saw as ideally moderate, mainstream, activistic, and non-ideological. Marvin Olasky championed a “compassionate conservatism” that was friendly to big government attempts at social uplift and that influenced George W. Bush. Hart saves his strongest criticism for former Bush administration speechwriters and adviser Michael Gerson, whom he contends is the most sophisticated evangelical political theorist. Unfortunately, Hart sees Gerson as morally conservative, but dispositionally progressive—the epitome of big government social activism.

Way Forward

At the heart of Hart’s critique of evangelical political engagement is his contention that evangelicals are too biblicist, seeing the Bible as a handbook for government. Born-again Protestants appeal to the Bible in political reflection because the Scriptures are the supreme authority and because American political conventions such as federalism, republicanism, and constitutionalism are merely formal arrangements that may be discarded if a better option surfaces (199). Simply put, evangelical biblicism is difficult to reconcile with traditionalist conservative appeals to tradition, just as evangelical activism is difficult to reconcile with traditionalist conservatism’s pessimism toward cultural renewal.

Hart argues that the way out of the morass of biblicism and activism lies in two emphases that are uncommon among contemporary American evangelicals. First, evangelicals need to give serious consideration to Two Kingdom theology and Augustinian thought; these two traditions will help evangelicals distinguish between ultimate and proximate goals for political engagement and avoid utopian pipe dreams about America’s future. Second, evangelicals need to embrace traditionalist conservatism. This will be difficult but not impossible. Evangelicals share with traditionalists a firm commitment to the family and hesitancy about at least some manifestations of big government. Nevertheless, there are two hurdles: traditional conservatism is not inherently biblical, which is problematic for evangelicals, and evangelicalism is frequently activisitc, which is problematic for conservatives. Hart is far too conservative to be optimistic, but he remains hopeful evangelicals might become authentic conservatives, which would benefit both movements.

Questions, Questions

I confess my own instincts are traditionalist conservative. I’m sympathetic toward what Hart is trying to do, since I agree with his fundamental premise that evangelicals are not as conservative as they think and have made few, if any, contributions to the conservative intellectual tradition. Big government conservatism has paved the way for big government liberalism. Evangelicals have most certainly been complicit in this, and our culture is none the healthier. And yet, I cannot bring myself to completely affirm Hart’s analysis or his prescription.

Analytically, Hart seems to affirm the “Wesleyan” interpretation of evangelical history. This approach, epitomized by Dayton, Balmer, and Hart’s mentor, Timothy Smith, emphasizes the activistic tendencies of evangelicals, especially the Wesleyan movements during and after the Second Great Awakening. This historiography plays into Hart’s contention that evangelicals are starry-eyed activists masquerading as thoughtful conservatives. Yet many historians are unpersuaded by this approach to evangelical history, opting for a more “Reformed” interpretation that notes evangelicals emphasized doctrinal particularity and confessional fidelity more than activism. 

The truth probably lies somewhere in between these two historiographical options—evangelicals are a motley combination of Pietists and Puritans. As such, evangelicalism comprises both conservative and non-conservative impulses, frequently held in tension. Some evangelicals gravitate toward conservatism, while others are more activistic. This does not contradict Hart’s argument that evangelicals have failed to contribute to the conservative intellectual tradition, but it does push back against his insinuation that evangelicals are really morally traditional liberals pretending to be conservatives.

Prescriptively, I agree that every evangelical ought to read Kirk and Weaver and subscribe to the Intercollegiate Review. Seriously. But it seems to me one of the strengths of evangelicalism (and Christianity in general) is that it does not uncritically embrace any political ideology. Traditionalist conservatism may well be superior to other options (I tend to think it is), but evangelicals should form tentative alliances with conservatism because, simply put, there are elements and/or application within any approach that do not square with Scripture. I think evangelicals can and even should have a strong affinity for traditionalist conservatism. But authentic Christian discipleship leads to various forms of gospel-inspired activism. Regrettably, this activism sometimes expands the role of government. This is unfortunate but inevitable, since we live in a fallen world—which, by the way, seems like a rather Augustinian concession.

Despite these reservations, I’m thankful Hart has written this book. While I sometimes disagree with his prescriptions, he has always possessed the uncanny ability to ask questions few others are asking. He frequently brings an iconoclastic element to discussions that help us to think more clearly. We are in need of much clear thinking about evangelical political engagement, and this book will be a helpful, if not fail-safe, guide to help us in that task. 

Nathan Finn (Ph.D., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.