The Vanishing Religious Roots of American Conservatism

Religious conservatives have made a political alliance with Republicans but are losing their influence.

Shockingly, in an election cycle dominated by debate about immigration and foreign policy and not life or marriage, eighty percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump.

In many ways, this election was a microcosm of the problems facing the “religious right.” Paradoxically, they are supporting the Republican Party in greater numbers but Republican leadership seems less committed to promoting the policies of the religious conservatives. It seems that the coalition between religious conservatives and the Republican party is increasingly a political alliance, not an ideological one. And as the religious roots of American conservatism fade, the influence of the religious right on American politics fades as well.

The principles of conservatism used to be inextricably linked to the values of religion. Russell Kirk, the preeminent conservative intellectual of the twentieth century, wrote that the first canon of conservative thought was a belief in a transcendent moral order. In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville called religion the “first American institution,” commending cultural Christianity for establishing the morality upon which a stable society is based. In his Farewell Address given in 1796, George Washington asserted that religion was an indispensable counterpart to popular governance. These ideas stem from eighteenth-century statesman Edmund Burke, known as the “Father of Conservatism,” who wrote succinctly: “Religion is the basis of civil society.”

In the late twentieth century, the conservative principles of Kirk and William Buckley were wed to a vocal constituency when evangelicals became active members of the Republican party. In the 1980s, the “Moral Majority” led by Jerry Falwell, Sr., rallied behind the Republican party to oppose abortion, push for prayer in schools, and support the traditional family. The power of the Moral Majority eventually diminished, but politically active evangelicals remain a potent interest group within the conservative movement. Even though many Jews, Catholics, and Muslims consistently vote Democratic, sixty-one percent of Republicans still say religion is very important to them compared to forty-seven percent of Democrats.