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.

A Review of 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.

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