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)ORULGD6WDWH8QLYHUVLW\/LEUDULHV 2020 Faith Matters : Towards a Group Theory of Evangelicals Role in American Politics Gaberiel A Clements Follow this and additional works at DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY College of Social Sciences and Public Policy FAITH MATTERS: TOWARDS A GROUP THEORY OF EVANGELICALS’ ROLE IN AMERICAN POLITICS By GABERIEL CLEMENTS A Thesis submitted to the Department of Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major Degree Awarded: Fall, 2020 Clements 2 The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Gaberiel Clements defended on November 13th, 2020. Dr. Douglas Ahler Thesis Director Dr. Jamil Drake Outside Committee Member Dr. Quintin Beazer Committee Member Note: Signatures are on file with the Honors Program office Clements 3 Abstract While scholars’ interest in the connection between white Evangelicals and conservative politics is far from new, political science as a discipline has insufficiently determined the role that religious identification has on political behavior. Because of this, I attempt to reorient scholarship on the subject by applying recent advances in political behavior, specifically Alan Abramowitz and Steven Webster’s Theory of Negative Partisanship and Larry Bartels and Christopher Achens’ Group Theory of politics towards the end of developing a working theory of Evangelicals’ Group identity concerning politics. Additionally, this project draws literature from religious history alongside sociology and psychology to better determine the correlation between Evangelicals’ religious and political identities. Therefore, this project seeks to better define the American Evangelical’s effect on political behavior by examining their perceptions of the political out-group and how this informs political determinations. To accomplish this goal, this project uses the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Politics Survey from 1994-1995, 1996, 2011, 2014, and 2016 to create a time series, with which I observe the effect of Evangelical religious identification on political views over time. The project’s central hypothesis is that as religious embeddedness (attendance, affiliation, and socialization)1 increases, so do negative perceptions of the political out-group, leading to solidifying religious identity with conservative political identity. Background The project's underlying phenomenon is the so-called “God Gap” that has emerged in American politics. This “God Gap” is the fact that there is a political difference between those 1 This hypothesis uses the definition of Religious embeddedness from Religious Right, Religious Left, Both, or Neither? Understanding Religio Political Identification 553-554 Clements 4 who identify with a religion and those who do not. Those with religious identification, especially Protestant Christians, identify with the Republican Party, whereas those with no religious affiliation identify with the Democratic Party. For example, authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell in American Grace found seventy percent of Evangelicals and sixty-two percent of Mainline Protestants identify as Republican. In contrast, among those identifying as none2, Republican identification is only around twenty percent (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 369-373). While this finding points to the idea that the Republican Party is the party of religion, this is a relatively recent occurrence that has a bearing on polarization in American politics. This wave of polarization appears to have started in the 1960s, beginning with the election of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent campaign of Barry Goldwater. Both campaigns helped start the realignment of Evangelicals and the American South from Democrat to Republican (McVicar 2018, 5-6). However, it was not until the 1980s that the divide had solidified (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 369-373). A prime example of this solidification is that Evangelicals' largest denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, remained apolitical beyond the local Church level until the 1980s. However, by this time, the denomination itself was openly led by conservatives and had formed an unspoken alliance with the Republican Party (Smith 1997, 62- 67). Perhaps the most significant symbol of this new divide was President Carter's seemingly sudden rejection in the 1980 election cycle. This race saw Carter, a Southern Baptist, and a Democrat, thoroughly rejected by a now openly conservative denomination that had exchanged him for Reagan (O. Smith 1997, 62-67). 2 Note: None does not necessarily mean atheist or agnostic identification, but also includes respondents that are spiritual or have other religious identities that are outside the traditional definitions of religious affiliation. Clements 5 However, despite how recently partisan bias has appeared, there has become a salient faction in American politics referred to as the Christian Right. While the Christian Right is not exclusively composed of Evangelicals, as it includes other groups like Conservative Catholics and Mormons, Evangelicals are often at the forefront of the movement. Describing the emergence of the Christian Right can be viewed as the result of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. This cultural shift resulted in a dynamic change in how religion was affected by politics, and by extension, how it regarded political engagement. Issues like premarital sex, abortion, and gay marriage moved the political into the “moral” purview. This moralizing of politics had the effect of first disrupting the majority status of Mainline Protestantism, then paved the way for the more conservative Evangelical denominations to take its place. This disruption resulted in Evangelicals becoming the most predominant force in Protestantism and American Religious life (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 100-120). In summation, the 1960s caused a kind of politicization of how the public viewed matters previously reserved for Churches. However, the politicization of Churches throughout this period eventually led to Evangelical power peaking due to the backlash that this movement caused. Therefore, while this movement initially saw those with socially conservative views sort themselves into conservative congregations, the 1990s saw individuals leave or refuse to join congregations based on holding liberal instead of conservative values. This sorting has, in effect, brought about the previously mentioned “God Gap” that ebbs and flows in saliency but seems to reinforce perceptions the public has about both major parties in America (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 120-132). Definition of Terms Clements 6 For this project’s purposes, the term Evangelical will be using Catherine Albanese’s description in America: Religion and Religions. Albanese states that Evangelicals are Christians who emphasize a secondary birth or born-again experience and focus on personal religious conversion (Albanese 2013, 115). Of course, in popular culture, Evangelical has become a catch- all term for any form of Conservative Protestantism, including denominations as varied as Baptists, Independent Fundamentalists, Pentecostals, and those who are theologically conservative yet do not have a denominational status (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 13). However, of importance is the delineation between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. While there is an overlap between the two groups, there is a common misconception of them being merely synonymous. Fundamentalists are unique in that they represent an even more conservative faction of Evangelicalism. This more traditional Theology diverts from more moderate factions of Evangelicalism by placing a particular emphasis on Biblical inerrancy and literacy, including the promotion of Intelligent Design exclusively (Albanese 2013, 247-253). In terms of American religion, not all Evangelicals are fundamentalists, but all fundamentalists seem to be Evangelicals. This association, therefore, helps to blur the line between the two factions. Additionally, both factions diverge from more liberal denominations, referred to as Mainline Protestantism. I define Mainline Protestantism as merely the Protestant denominations historically dominant in the United States, coming the closest to establishment churches. Mainline Denominations traditionally include Episcopalians and Congregationalists, along with the more contemporary addition of Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. Perhaps the most significant difference between Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants is the promotion of the so- called Social Gospel and the type of theology practiced. The Social Gospel is the idea that Clements 7 Christians should take an active role in social institutions to promote equality and fairness, and this promotion of the Social Gospel reinforces the more liberal theology associated with Mainline Protestantism (Putnam and Campbell 2010, 14-15). Based on these findings, my definitions largely reflect political scientists' functional way of thinking about the delineation between Evangelicals/Fundamentalists and Mainline Protestants. However, religious historians appear to apply a further delineation between Mainline Protestants and Liberal Evangelicals from what they label Radical Evangelicals or Fundamentalists by highlighting the use of apocalypticism, which resulted in the later political developments of Evangelicals (Avery 2014). The result is what religious historian George Marsden calls the “Great Reversal,” which is the

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