Conservative evangelical Christians are using the label 'values voters' to describe those who vote on the basis of religious values. At least, that's what they would like everyone to think - the label sounds nice and broad, but it incorrectly assumes that all religious believers not only have the same values, but also the same ideas about how those values should be reflected in public policy.

In Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem, Noah Feldman explains that both of these assumptions are very problematic — and the latter is arguably the most problematic because it means that even when religious groups agree on some principle, they won’t end up agreeing on what to do about it.

This is especially true because the conservative evangelicals who promote the ecumenical-sounding label “values voters” are often the same ones who are most unwilling to compromise on the details of policy proposals. Compromise, however, is precisely what it needed in order to create a broad coalition that can get legislation passed. Conservative evangelicals act like its possible to promote religion and religious values “generally,” but the truth is that this just isn’t possible:

Most values evangelicals believe, for example, that if the schools celebrate Christmas, it should also be all right for them to acknowledge Hanukkah. But what if it turns out that some Jews think the spirit of Hanukkah lies precisely in rejecting the majority’s Christianity in the same way the Maccabees resisted Hellenistic paganism? The Ten Commandments may appear at first to represent common ground. But what about Hindus and Buddhists, who are excluded by the commandments’ theological assertion that the God who took the Israelites out of Egypt is the one true God who permits no other gods to be taken before him?

What of Muslims, for whom the Bible is a preliminary, imperfect revelation, unlike God’s definitive teaching, found only in the Qur’an? Even the text as rendered into English poses problems. The commandment usually translated “Thou shalt not kill” is more accurately translated from Hebrew as “Thou shalt not murder,” a distinction that makes a big interdenominational difference.

These are just some of the ways in which devout religious believers can sincerely disagree on basic values. They can also, however, disagree on what to do with those values:

Religiously inspired disagreements on values do not end there. Today, most evangelical Protestants support capital punishment on a biblical basis, while many Catholics rely on the late Pope John Paul II’s teaching about the sanctity of life to oppose the death penalty. Protestants and Catholics still differ over the permissibility of divorce — one of the issues that fueled the Reformation in England — even though many American Catholics are prepared to disobey their church’s teaching on the question. Churches differ about whether to embrace same-sex marriage or reject it.

When it comes to holidays, some Jews, especially the outward-looking Hasidim of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, welcome the chance to erect menorahs near public Christmas trees, but many other Jews oppose the celebration of Christmas in public venues on the theory that they do not want to be exposed to the religious symbols associated with the holiday. Their reason to reject Christmas celebrations is not that they have some problem with peace on earth and goodwill to men, but that, like Muslims, they do not accept the divinity of Christ and the virgin birth.

The possible disagreements between Evangelical Christians and Jews are worth paying especially close attention to because in recent years these Christians have been trying hard to attract support from conservative Jews for the Christian Right’s political agenda. It’s assumed by many on the Christian Right that because conservative Jews share with them many basic religious and moral values, then this will translated into shared support for the same legislative proposals — but that’s simply wrong. A conservative Jew can oppose homosexuality without also believing that it or gay marriage should be criminalized. A conservative Jew can believe that people should have more religion in their lives without also believing that the state has the authority to promote or endorse anyone’s religion.

So values evangelicalism labors under a strange and troubling paradox often unnoticed by its advocates. Values evangelicals consider relativism the enemy. They are constantly asserting that the values they stand for mean something — that these values are true and good and worth fighting for, unlike the weak platitudes favored by legal secularists. But like other multiculturalists, values evangelicals often have to water down the traditions to which they belong in order to find common ground with one another. Values evangelicalism assumes an acceptance of others’ beliefs that many religious believers cannot accept without sliding into relativism.

Values evangelicals, ironically enough, can cling to the hope of creating common, shared religious values only because they are willing to paper over real theological differences. Some sincerely believe that different religions espouse similar morality, but many just assume — incorrectly — that other religious people must see tough moral issues the same way they do. A broadly shared reaction against 1960s-style secularism helped fuel the perception that believers of all stripes agree on social values, but the more religious diversity we have in the United States, the clearer the falsehood of that assumption becomes.

Ultimately, what we are looking at is the difference between liberal, pluralistic democracy on the one side and authoritarian, theocratic dominion on the other. Liberal, pluralistic democracy means being willing to compromise on what you believe in order to find common ground with people who strongly disagree in order to find a way to achieve laws or policies which can fairly be applied to all people. Most people recognize that this entails not basing laws or policies on any one religion or religious tradition. Conservative evangelicals who recognize this also realize that they have to “water down” their traditions in order to find common ground with other conservative believers, even if they aren’t willing to find common ground with liberal believers and non-believers.

Authoritarian, theocratic dominion means insisting that just a single cultural and religious tradition will be the basis for all society, all laws, and all public policies. Those who disagree do not offer positions which can or should be taken into account and there is certainly no value in even considering compromising to reach common ground with them. Laws and policies will be imposed on them and against their views — with force, if necessary. It is theocratic in that the basis for laws and policies are ultimately religious. This is the tendency within the Christian Right today and this is why so much of the Christian Right is illiberal, authoritarian, anti-democratic, and anti-pluralistic.

Use of the label “values voters” appears to be an attempt to lean more towards democracy rather than theocracy — much like the original use of “Religious Right” was meant to suggest a coalition of conservative religious groups and perspectives. The truth of history, however, has demonstrated that the “Religious Right” was only ever really the “Christian Right” with very few non-Christian supporters. The Christian Right didn’t even have a lot of success in attracting overt Catholic support, much less non-Christian support.

Will “values voters” go the same direction? Probably, so long as conservative evangelical Christians insist on using their power to impose their religious beliefs; this, in turn, is almost inevitable so long as their persist in the delusions that other religious believers — even conservative believers — not only share the same values but also share the same ideas about how to implement those values in the arena of public policy. Christians who paper over “real theological differences” and refuse to acknowledge that others see “tough moral issues” differently from them do so because it’s so difficult for them accept that others can sincerely and legitimately disagree on matters like this.

 

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