Here is Part 2 of the conversation between Glenn Lucke and Michael Lindsay. Part 1 can be found here.

GL: In Chapter 1, Presidents and Politics, you write that Bill Clinton and Al Gore are Southern Baptist evangelicals. They beat incumbent President George H. W. Bush in 1992, but you also state that 63% of evangelicals voted for the mainline Episcopalian Bush against these two Southern Baptists.

Why do you think so many evangelicals have antipathy for Clinton and Gore and think they are not evangelicals? Does your distinction between cosmopolitan and populist evangelicals come into play here? Do you think cosmopolitans evangelicals are more likely to view Clinton and Gore favorably than populist evangelicals? Why or why not?

ML: It’s an interesting question. At this very moment, a group of Baptists—including former President Clinton and Vice President Gore—are gathering in Atlanta for the New Baptist Covenant Meeting. It’s an unprecedented meeting of Baptists of all stripes that has been organized by former President Carter and Mercer University President Bill Underwood. The timing seems suspicious to many conservative evangelicals. It’s a week before the Super Tuesday primary, and for the first time in history, several members of the Democratic Party elite are gathering at a meeting to proclaim their religious convictions and how they relate to American public life. Of course, some Republicans will be in attendance. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) are slated to speak. But the program tends to favor the political left. For example, Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund (and close to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton) is on the agenda.

Are cosmopolitan evangelicals more likely to regard Gore and Clinton favorably? Yes, but not because more cosmopolitan evangelicals are registered Democrats (some are, but many are not). Instead, I think the difference is that cosmopolitan evangelicals are less likely to apply a standard litmus test for who they can work with. Cosmopolitans are, by definition, bridge builders and often look for allies in unusual places. That also inclines cosmopolitan evangelicals to give people the benefit of the doubt whereas their populist brethren tend not to do that.

Based on what I know of the religious lives of Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as Al Gore, I would have to conclude that they are, in fact, evangelicals. That doesn’t sit well with a large segment of the evangelical electorate. In fact, conservative evangelicals made a sport of demonizing the Clintons in the 1990s.

I’ve often said that in order to succeed, a movement doesn’t need a god, but it needs a devil. During the Clinton White House years, the First Couple became that for many conservative evangelicals. They were the rallying cry that brought different evangelicals together. They were the object of evangelicals’ shared opposition. That’s why the candidacy of Hillary Clinton is so interesting this year—she’s the most polarizing figure running for the White House. Will cosmopolitan evangelicals end up supporting her if she is running against a Mormon or a nominal-Episcopalian-turned-Baptist like John McCain? I think it’s possible. In fact, 2008 could be the year that the conventional wisdom about the “values voters” is turned on its head.

GL: My hunch, perhaps incorrect, is that many (not all) evangelical leaders and lay people believe that their top movement leaders are the most influential evangelicals in politics.

However, in your book (p. 26) you contend otherwise. You write, “I found that it is not movement leaders like Richard Land or D. James Kennedy [now deceased], who exert the greatest influence on the politicians they help elect. When it comes to actual policy decisions, the most powerful evangelical voices come from those working inside an administration.”

Can you elaborate on how real policy work actually gets accomplished? Can you spell out why top movement leaders are less influential than the appointees within an administration? Why would, say, an undersecretary, or even an aide, have more influence than Richard Land or James Dobson?

Related, how successful do you think efforts by Patrick Henry College in Northern Virginia and The King’s College in Manhattan will be, both of which explicitly aim to place their graduates in the organizational structures of Washington (and other spheres of society)?

ML: Policy deliberations in any administration are long, complex, and require lots of compromise. Not a single politician I interviewed could name a piece of legislation they voted for or supported solely because of their religious convictions. “It’s a mix of good and bad things,” said one former Congressman, citing the numerous, unrelated amendments that get added to bills. Senior administration officials appreciate the political compromises that Senators and Members of the House have to make, and so their involvement in the legislative process is more direct and nuanced than what movement leaders can do. Because they are not in the various policy meetings and compromise discussions that take place, movement leaders remain outside the inner chamber of political power, and as a result, if evangelicals have a major say in a piece of legislation, it comes from someone sitting in those meetings. The growing number of evangelicals who now sit in those meetings—during both Democratic and Republican administrations—is how evangelicals have had a larger voice in public policy over the last thirty years.

I don’t mean to suggest that an administrative aide or low-level official wields more influence over the political process than someone like James Dobson or Richard Land. But the bulk of the work that is done in Washington—the nitty-gritty research, the telephone calls made to produce political compromises, and the drafting of talking points to be used by elected officials—is done by people at a much lower level than I expected. As one former White House official told me, “It’s a confederacy of kids holding things together.”

Regarding the various initiatives that have been launched by evangelicals in recent years, I think you are astute to observe how intentional they have been to place evangelicals within major social institutions. Evangelicals no longer eschew the halls of power (if they ever did). Instead, they are deeply committed to training and developing young people to move into these positions of power. So far, they have had mixed success, but at the least, no one can fault evangelicals for lacking ambition.

GL: Let’s bring this email conversation to a close with a final question. Since we’ve been focused on the political chapters of your book, describe the sorts of politics that American evangelicals will be engaged in around 2015. What impulses will animate evangelicals politically, across the diverse spectrum of evangelicals? What achievements do you think they will be able to realize? Which achievements will they make progress toward without final success? Where will they fail?

ML: Glenn, it’s been great to have this ongoing conversation with you. Okay, it’s time for political predictions. Ten years from now, I think civil unions for same-sex couples will be recognized around the country. This will be greatly upsetting for a small number of evangelicals (mostly older ones), but a growing number of evangelicals will remain indifferent to the issue (as we currently see among younger evangelicals). The abortion debate will be no more settled than it is today, but there will be a warmer welcome for pro-life Democrats within their party than currently exists.

Christian engagement with Hinduism will become significantly more important ten years from now, for over the next decade, U.S. relations with India will become even friendlier and relations with China will become cooler. Evangelicals will be even more engaged in foreign affairs than they currently are—international missions trips will become more common among evangelical congregations, matters dealing with faith (at home and abroad) will play a larger role in U.S. foreign policy, and significantly more U.S.-based parachurch organizations will be led by non-Americans (as will also be the case for corporate America).

A modified version of the Bush White House’s faith-based initiatives will still be around ten years from now; the federal government will continue to grow, and with it, so will federal support of social services provided by faith-based groups. This support will reflect partisan preferences, much as we see happening for public health and family planning organizations as party control of the White House switches every so often.

The advances that evangelicals have made in politics over the last thirty years will benefit other religious groups in the years ahead. Mormons, Muslims, and Hindus will employ similar campaign rhetoric about the place of faith in American public life. On the campaign trail and in office, religious minorities will sound like American evangelicals, even though these different groups will hold different positions on the issues.

The religious divide in American politics will increasingly be between those of various faiths and those of no faith at all. Sectarian differences will give way to a sense of common cause as practicing Jews, Christians, and Muslims oppose and are opposed by secular Americans who would prefer politicians keep their faith commitments private. And finally, ten years from now, I hope people look back and say that Faith in the Halls of Power got it right on the evangelical ascendancy and what evangelicals have done with the power they wield!

That wraps up the email conversation between Michael Lindsay and me. If you’re interested, please do two things:

1) post a question or comment, and hopefully Michael and/or I will be able to respond and,

2) go get a copy of Faith in the Halls of Power.

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