American Conservatism's Journey: Church to State, 1960 - 2016

By William Traugott

This work provides an account of American Conservatism's Journey from church to state through nearly six decades.  The author's personal experience and study have combined to create this analysis of modern American denominations. The book observes the growth of ecclesiastical and political conservatism, as a plant with root

• Language: English
• Publisher: St. Polycarp Publishing House
• Release date: May 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781947707764

William Traugott

William Traugott is a writer in both fiction and history. He has authored a novel and three collections of short stories-particularly on subjects of the American Southwest that reflect his environmental concerns. Within his trilogy on science and religion is an analytical history of the reformer Martin Luther and the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Educated and experienced in theology, Dr. Traugott writes of the changes encountered by American Christianity going into the twenty-first century. Churches' ecumenical intents have resulted in unity denominationally as well as in reactions creating new American entities-all part of the author's career and writing.

Book preview

Introduction

Focused experience and specialized education are dominant forces in the development of the modern mind. With the diversity available in both fields, obviously complementary and conflicting ideologies will occur. This author’s initial experience and education were ecclesiastical—within Christianity—and later turned to broader societal and institutional experience and education. As the author’s mother church journeyed through the twentieth century, challenges for adaptation occurred. The leadership in that church body favored ecumenical inclusion with other bodies of the same denomination up to the latter 1960's. Not accustomed to, nor prepared for political struggles within an ecclesiastical institution, the leadership succumbed in 1969 to a conservatism fostered by a few newly arrived, disgruntled theologians; some ignored ministers excluded from ecclesiastical leadership; and a number of the laity suspicious of change or adaptation. As frequently practiced by politicians and ecclesiastics resisting change, character assassination set in, and the conservatives took over the church body. That struggle surrounded this author’s theological education and initial ministerial experience.

Meanwhile, other denominations—having fostered similar ecumenical outreach—were suffering from their own ecclesiastical civil wars. The results were: (1) a loss in membership by the majority of mainline Protestant denominations and (2), as an alternative to progressive theology, the rise of Evangelicalism with its basic, fundamental Christian tenets. Later this author learned of these developments in other church circles and experienced the furor of the Christian Right. Additionally, mainline Protestant denominations, taken over by fundamental leadership, fostered a conservatism and at times allied politically with the Evangelicals. These developments were seen from the grassroots and are reflected in subsequent chapters—without a minute tracing of history and documentation through published works, delivered speeches, theological tirades, or the sometimes political propositions from the Right. This study is American Conservative’s Journey, but it is also the author’s personal walk with progressive and tolerant denominationalism.

Along the way, the experiences of both progressive and conservative Christianity developed a number of principles that continue to influence and, at times, drive conservatism. These principles serve as background for the study.

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Principle: Change and choice occur.

Despite the objection of traditionalists, change occurs, and as a result choice is possible. The conservative mind would contend that change threatens stability, but actually change provides a choice, not an elimination. Thus, the conservative has the opportunity to maintain what is and has been, the traditional. However, here a distinct difference between progressivism and conservatism, particularly politically and ecclesiastically, occurs. The conservative frequently demands conformity and practices elimination, while the progressive fosters openness and practices inclusion. The latter becomes an Achilles’ heel for progressivism when conservatism is included in its circle and then seeks to destroy progressivism from within. The strategy is applied within the church and the state.

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Principle: Rejection marks conservatism.

Traditionalists balk at progressivism and, insisting upon inherited prejudicial principles, judge progressivism to be threatening. Thus, inclusion is tantamount to defeat and is resisted. Rejection of progressivism provides safety and assures preservation of the status quo and security.

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Principle: Adaptation marks progressivism.

Progressivism, recognizing conservatism’s existence, works for inclusion and adapts in application as necessary. Adaptation marks flexibility and the viability of change for the progressive person, whereas it implies weakness to the conservative individual.

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These principles continue into the twenty-first century and mark the stymying of compromise and cooperation between opposing philosophies and, even, the possibilities for progress. Within the Christian Right, the signs of stubborn and repetitive resistance to social change periodically have resulted in radical and unlawful destruction—certainly not the intent of the vast majority of the Christian Right but the ideology in which such inhumanity can occur.

Today, the reminder of the warring struggles among European denominations four centuries ago has come from the radicalization and nationalization of vying theologies within modern Islam. That reminder becomes a periodic note within this study. In 1967, signs of fear and change in the Arab world were occurring, but Arab Muslim experiences were remote to America’s Heartland. Only periodic references on the news were noted. Touched by Arab policies in the energy crisis of 1973, citizens across the country were inconvenienced with shortages of gasoline at the pump. After bombings of buildings at home and abroad, the most radical contact of Muslim conservatism came to the United States in 2001 with the bombings in New York City and Washington, D.C. Since September 9, 2001 (9/11), a new form of conservatism came to Westerners’ attention. Radical jihad—an ultra form of conservatism in Arab Muslim religion and society—left its mark on the entire nation. That experience has colored both Arab-American and Christian-Muslim relationships ever since. The event captured the attention of Westerners; jihadists and suicide bombers became part of Westerners’ vocabulary. The relevance of these events receives attention particularly in Chapter 5.

Important also to this study is the role of Evangelicalism among denominations and in American government through recent decades. This author grew up in an evangelical Protestant church, but evangelical did not mean then what it means now. The transformation of the meaning was subtle and gradual. Once it was a descriptive adjective for a Christian denomination’s mission, but in the latter twentieth century, with a capital E, it became the mark of a fundamental movement, the Christian Right. Elaborated in Chapter 3, Evangelicalism has become the banner for conservatives who have given—with their fundamentalist insistence—the United States a misinterpretation of progressive and inclusive Christianity. Evangelicalism finds periodic reference throughout this study and the modern journey of church and state in America.

A key element in the journey has been the transfer of conservative Christianity into American politics—a transfer of denominational fundamentalism to the state. The process has been a transfer as well as an inclusion of Christian conservatism into American government. Propounding a separation of church and state, this church movement fostered a subtle transition into the nation’s politics and subsequently into its government. This transition and the resulting contentiousness are the subject of this study. In Chapter 1, conservatism is Defined and Delineated—using botanical imagery, the seeds are gathered and planted. In Chapter 2, the American Roots of conservatism are traced from the sixteenth-century Reformation through European background into the twentieth century. From that development came influences that directly impinged upon American Protestantism and empowered conservative Evangelicalism. In Chapter 3, the Religious Rise of fundamentalism and conservatism is traced, and the conservative plant grows. The Denominational Decline of mainline Protestantism and Evangelical Emergence are analyzed. In Chapter 4, the Political Performance for ecclesiastical conservatism is studied, and the conservative plant blossoms with tending and care by the Christian Right. To highlight an expected harvest, conservatism claims in Chapter 5 a Poised Position in American society and government with both a Church Appeal and a State Appeal. The Journey continues, and the struggle of conservatism with progressivism weighs heavily upon Christian denominations and the American government (judicial, legislative, and administrative branches) after 2016 and into the future.

As the conservative American plant has grown, evidence of its size and sway has become more evident. Lost at times in the give and take, the comings and goings of everyday life, the right-wing element of Christendom continues to work its way, and conservatism has the dream that its plant will dominate and spread its seeds throughout America.

One

Conservatism - Defined and Delineated

Conservatism has timely, timed, but not timeless definitions, for the human instinct to avoid change has varied in content over the millennia, especially in the Western World. Political and ecclesiastical conservatives have consistently advocated a reticence to make any change from their heritage. They have avoided change for purposes of self-preservation and out of fear that their personal safety might be threatened. Frequently state and church have traveled together for conservatives, who have utilized the organizational strength of the one to enforce the other. And, developments since World War II—both ecclesiastically and politically within the United States—have followed that path and have emerged in the twenty-first century ready to challenge and, at times, to inundate progressives completely. Refusal to accept sources of progressive thought has fomented into conservative proclamations not always substantiated either politically or ecclesiastically within American tradition. The nation’s conservatism has manifest itself religiously with Christian Evangelicals and politically in the Republican party.

Asked has been, What would change bring to my life that at the moment is comfortable and content with what I have inherited? Asked in twenty-first-century America, that question has emerged to envelope one political party and a Christian ideological movement that has used the political power to foster its religious agenda. Acting sometimes as though conservatism is unique to the United States, advocates have supported little change in political policy or religious tenets unless beneficial to their own cause. Frequently conservatism has examined and very selectively used United States history, while at times turning from or ignoring other international conservative groups that have their own political and religious convictions. One of those political groups is England’s Conservative Party (C.P.).

The Conservative and Unionist Party in the United Kingdom (U.K.) politically is center-right and certainly not as right-wing as its counterpart in the United States. England’s Conservative Party took the majority of the seats in the House of Commons after the 2015 election and, thereby, had one major thing in common with their right-wing American brothers—the Republicans controlled the United States House of Representatives. Founded in 1834, the party had Prime Ministers leading the government for a large part of the twentieth century—including Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) from 1979 to 1990 and, previously, Winston Churchill (1874-1965) from 1940 to 1945 and again 1951 to 1955. Thatcher, a friend of United States President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), saw economic liberalization in England. Conservatism in the U.K. presented a broader political perspective than the Republican ultra-right (Tea Party) in the United States House.

Religiously conservative groups on the global scene also include Muslim jihadist sects (e.g., al Qaeda), particularly apparent in the twenty-first century with their international fanaticism. In addition to their own homelands, they have brought terrorism and violence into the West—at times without Western conservatives realizing that the Muslim extremism is a strict, conservative interpretation of sacred literature, in this case, of the Koran with an advocacy for intolerance and destruction. While radical jihadists destroy and pillage other Muslim communities, they maintain a fundamentalist interpretation of morality and social strictures—extreme application of Sharia law. The jihad turmoil wrought upon and within Western countries has planted a fear in the lives of European and American citizenry. This Muslim unrest is a contemporary manifestation of a historical progression of Muslim conservatism into a concentrated ecclesiastical and political movement that is extreme and can be threatening to the international community. Such radical conservatism identifies one part of a broader array of definitions applicable to today’s conservatism that requires further defining and delineating.

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Defined

Although applied to religious sects and their adherents, conservatism is also associated with politics. Fundamentalism has been used to focus particularly upon religious conservatism. As noted, conservatives tend to oppose change and favor traditional values. In the United States, they have found a political avenue to express their views, and many advocates endeavor to squelch any opposition. Where progressives are tolerant of other ideologies and open to change, political conservatives may be intolerant of accepting any ideology other than their own. Conservatives oppose any change challenging their contentions and focus upon maintenance of an order familiar to them and their past. Tradition is a strong part of the conservatives’ contention especially as applied to religion and government. They wish to keep what has been established and advocate a stability within society. Used are political as well as religious institutions; and their desire can be (but not always) for gradual rather than abrupt change. To American conservatives, political influence or dominance has become an ultimate goal.

Concomitant with that political goal have been the religious roots in fundamentalism. Within the religious institution, advocates have professed what they consider to be the