When the Sojourners editorial staff sat down last fall to map out our coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign, it was clear that the old theme of "religion and politics" would again be part of the story. For the '88 season, this truth was made even more evident by the presence of two ordained ministers among the field of candidates.
The importance of the two preachers was magnified by the importance that the "Super Tuesday" primaries in March placed on the South. The South is traditionally the most religious section of the country. It is also the native land of both preacher-candidates and their strongest natural base. So we decided to focus our in-house coverage of the primaries on Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson in the South.
In the intervening months, we think those choices have borne the test of time, even as the story has changed. For Jackson, victories in the South proved to be the springboard to broader acceptance in the rest of the country. On Super Tuesday he became a serious contender. In Michigan the prospect of his nomination became thinkable.
The frontiers of Jackson's "common ground" continue to expand. By now it is clear that we've witnessed at least the birth of an important new political personality at the national level, and perhaps the germination of a new multiracial force in American politics united around a common appeal for economic justice.
For Pat Robertson, the South proved to be the burial ground of his '88 candidacy. No force at Robertson's disposal could heal the self-inflicted wounds of his repeated misstatements about nuclear missiles in Cuba, much less overcome the mystical power of George Bush's incumbency.
Amid Robertson's failure, and the Swaggart scandal, the death of the Religious Right as a political force is being predicted, often by the same observers who missed the story of its birth in the late-1970s. However, as Vicki Kemper discovered in a score of Southern towns, the death notices are greatly exaggerated.
Robertson's candidacy seemed to promise his followers a short out to the top of American politics. But its long-term impact can be found in the slower and ultimately more effective process of building a permanent political force from the ground up. As Kemper found in her travels, the Religious Right is quietly, for a change, becoming more deeply entrenched in the institutions and structures of the Republican Party at the precinct, county, and state levels.
BENEATH THE COMMONPLACE discussion of religion and politics, and of religious figures in politics, lies the less explored question of underlying values in American political culture. In the aftershock of the 1960s, a large and diverse number of Americans have experienced a cultural dislocation, a feeling that traditional institutions of authority no longer reflect their values and interests. Faith, secular and sacred, has been broken, or at least shaken.
Some have been deeply alienated by the moral relativism that replaced traditional religious and familial verities. This is, of course, the core constituency for the Religious Right. Others, especially though not exclusively, in the black community, were cut adrift by the dashing of once-bright hopes for a new distribution of the American pie. This is Jesse Jackson's political base.
In both cases the alienation was deepened and compounded by the jarring economic dislocations that began in the mid-1970s and continue to this day. Jackson is building his campaign on a broad appeal to those left behind in an economy where real family income is slowly shrinking. The Religious Right pledges fealty to Reaganomics and tries to pin economic problems on cultural evils -- such as decline of the work ethic and family fragmentation -- which are, in fact, symptoms of economic dislocation.
In this context, political movements from outside the mainstream that are calling for a revision or renewal of the social contract were bound to flourish. The time was ripe for a bold, new definition of the fundamental values that bind the American people to one another and comprise the source of authority for democratic institutions.
In the Religious Right and the Jesse Jackson campaign, two such movements are now upon us. One turns genuine cultural alienation to the service of economic and military elites. The other sees the struggle for a democratic redistribution of economic and political power as the best vehicle for cultural healing.
Most likely 1988 will be a transitional, holding-action election with no bold moves in any direction. But Jackson, Robertson, and their followers are making the long-term choices facing America clearer than ever.
Danny Duncan Collum is a Sojourners contributing editor.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!