Wanted: a leader for the U.S. social conservative movement. Must be able to press all the right buttons, be a committed Christian and have a vision to propel the Republican Party back to power.

U.S. social and religious conservatives will be searching for someone to fill that void as they gather in Washington this Friday to Sunday for the fourth annual summit of self-styled “Values Voters.”

(Photo: Conservative protesters near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, 12 Sept 2009/Mike Theiler)

Dubbed the “Religious Right,” they have been stirred by a summer of discontent when their activists went on the offensive against Democratic President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority of healthcare reform, taking part in widely publicized town hall meetings on the issue that often turned raucous.

Formerly high-profile leaders of the religious right such as televangelist Jerry Falwell and political operative Ralph Reed have died or retreated from prominence. Last year’s economic crisis helped propel Obama to the White House.

“Social conservatives are looking for leadership and this is one of the places these folks are going to be shopping,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby group organizing the summit.

Read the whole story here.

America’s social and religious conservatives are turning up the heat as they galvanize heartland opposition against the latest example of President Barack Obama-inspired “socialism” — a climate change bill that aims to reduce fossil fuel emissions, which most scientists have linked to climate change.  

The Democratic Party-led House of Representatives passed the bill on Friday. It would require large companies, including utilities and manufacturers, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases associated with global warming by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels. It must still go through the U.S. Senate, where its ultimate fate remains uncertain despite the Democratic majority there.

Conservative Christians, a key base – if not THE base — for the out-of-power Republican Party, are among the biggest skeptics of human-induced global warming. In the eyes of many environmentalists, they were part of an “unholy alliance” with the energy industry that enjoyed its zenith under former president George W. Bush, who pulled America out of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at cutting emissions in the developed world. The Bush administration was widely seen as hostile to any attempt to cap emissions as well as the science behind it.

Conservative Christians are sounding the alarm bells about the climate bill, which represents Obama’s first major legislative victory and which Republicans see as a major opportunity to gain political ground ahead of the 2010 congressional elections. You can see our coverage of this issue here.

Republicans are calling it a “job killer” while the Cornwall Alliance – a conservative Christian coalition – has described its cap and trade provisions, which allow companies that pollute less than their limit to sell some of their permits to others struggling to meet such green requirements, ”as the largest tax hike in history.” Analysts have said such arguments may appeal to voters especially against the backdrop of the current recession.

Conservative Christians are distributing an online petition called We Get It! which reads in part: “Our stewardship of creation must be based on Biblical principles and factual evidence. We face important environmental challenges, but must be cautious of claims that our planet is in peril from speculative dangers like man-made global warming.”

Taking aim at other religious groups that have lobbied for emissions-cap measures on the grounds that the poor will suffer most from climate change, the Cornwall Alliance says the poor will be ill-served by cap and trade and its impact on the economy. In its “Talking Points” on cap and trade it says it is “a regressive tax … . Because the poor spend a higher proportion of their monthly income on energy than do others, they pay more of their disposable income for the increase in energy costs.”

It also puts its faith in such matters in the hands of a higher power.

“Cap and trade rests on an unbiblical world view. It assumes that a minuscule change in atmospheric
chemistry (carbon dioxide rising from about 3 in every 10,000 to about 5 in every 10,000 molecules in the atmosphere) could cause catastrophic climate change, putting human and other life at risk. That belief is contrary to the Biblical teaching that a wise Creator made the Earth (Genesis 1–2) and on observing it saw that it was ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31).”

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and a leading figure in the social conservative movement, devoted much of his nationally syndicated radio show on Saturday to the topic, calling cap and trade a “regressive tax to the max.” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said in his blog last week that it “would increase an already staggering national debt by 26 percent by 2035” — a figure taken directly from the Cornwall Alliance’s estimates.

Some evangelical Christians also have said that the social upheaval that analysts have linked to climate change may be signs of the second coming of Christ. Perkins has outlined such a scenario in his recent book “Personal Faith, Public Policy.”

One thing is clear: this issue has the potential to really stir up the Republican Party base. But will it stir it enough to have an impact when the Senate considers the climate bill or when Americans go to the polls in 2010?

(Photo: A demonstrator for clean energy holds up a sign during a rally on Capitol Hill in Washington March 2, 2009. Moves to cap greenhouse gas emissions and promote green energy have some conservative Christians seeing red. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

The evangelical Protestant revival has been one of the most dynamic religious and social movements in the United States in the last three decades. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, one in four U.S. adults now count themselves as followers of this faith tradition.

So it may come as a surprise to some non-American readers of this blog that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) – with 16 million members, America’s largest evangelical denomination and the country’s second largest after the Catholic Church — is ringing the alarm bells of decline.

Its research arm LifeWay Research released the following projections this week at the convention’s annual meeting in Kentucky:  it said its numbers would fall nearly 50 percent by 2050 “unless the aging and predominantly white denomination reverses a 50-year trend and does more to strengthen evangelism, reach immigrants, and develop a broader ethnic base.”

“Using U.S. Census projected population figures, SBC membership could fall from a peak of 6 percent of the American population in the late 1980s to 2 percent in 2050,” said LifeWay director Ed Stetzer.

The SBC in 1951 enjoyed robust annual growth of four percent and still had two percent in the early 1970s but in recent years it has been falling about 0.6 percent per year.

The number of baptisms — which is how the SBC counts converts and is key to a group that sees bringing souls to Christ as its raison d’être — have also been in decline.

“I’m not saying the sky is falling but we are alarmed about it,” said Gary Ledbetter, a spokesman for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. He and other Southern Baptists I spoke to said they saw the problem as a spiritual one and they see themselves not doing enough in their evangelism efforts.

It all raises a number of interesting questions and issues. While the SBC does have churches outside of the South, most of its membership remains concentrated there. So the ceiling it seems to have hit may point to the changing nature of the South itself as immigrants pour into the region from other parts of the United States as well as other countries.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex where I reside, a growing number of previously “dry” areas where you couldn’t buy booze are going “wet” — a trend seen elsewhere across the South. That says a lot about the changing nature of the South and strongly suggests the SBC is losing its clout in public affairs and policy. If there is a dry area in the South, you can bet it has a Baptist church. But more and more Baptist churches are finding themselves in wet areas as well.

If the SBC is in decline, one also has to wonder what the long-term political implications could be for the Republican Party. Conservative white evangelical Protestants have become its most reliable base. In recent election cycles it has relied on this base to deliver the vote in part by galvanizing opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.

And the conservative SBC, one could argue, is the core of that base.

Of course, the SBC could be losing people to other evangelical denominations or even the Mormon faith (SBC officials have long maintained that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a successful “poacher” of its flock). Neither trend would necessarily hurt the Republican Party. Mormons for one are every bit as conservative and Republican as Southern Baptists.

But Republican strategists will probably not take comfort by the fact that the SBC’s demographics in many ways mirror that of the party itself. Old, white, and Southern (one could add male and rural), with expansion dependent upon attracting immigrants and other ethnic groups, notably Hispanics. It is perhaps no coincidence that the core of the Republican base looks a lot like the party itself.

(Photo: The SBC leadership meeting George W. Bush while he was still U.S. president.Oct From L-R are: President of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention Dr. Morris Chapman, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention Dr. Frank Page, Bush, and Page’s wife Dayle. REUTERS/Larry Downing, October 11, 2006 (UNITED STATES)

America may have a president and Congress that support abortion rights, but a new Gallup poll suggests that for the first time such a stance is not the majority view.

Gallup said on Friday that a new poll, conducted May 7 to 10, found “51 percent of Americans calling themselves ‘pro-life’ on the issue of abortion and 42 percent ‘pro-choice.’ This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.”

“The new results, obtained from Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50 percent were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. Prior to now, the highest percentage identifying as pro-life was 46 percent, in both August 2001 and May 2002.”

Underscoring how divisive the issue remains, the poll further found that 23 percent of Americans felt abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and 22 percent said it should be legal in all circumstances.

Still, it found that 53 percent held to a middle view — that is should be legal in certain circumstances. That figure, Gallup said, has been steady since 1975.

A few other things stand out. The percentage of Republicans and those who lean to that party who lablel themselves “pro-life” rose by 10 percentage points over the past year to 70 percent. As there was essentially no shift among Democrats on this issue (33 percent said they were “pro-life,” unchanged since last year) much of the shift clearly came from the Republican side. Does this suggest a hardening among the party faithful, whose numbers have also been in decline, in reaction to the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama?

Much of the opposition to abortion in America has been faith-based, led mostly though not exclusively by conservative Catholics and evangelicals. The latter in particular have for decades been a key base of support for the Republican Party.

There has been much recent talk among the media and Republican strategists that the party needs to move away from divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage in a bid to broaden a base which many see as shrinking. This poll will be ammunition for those who say the party needs to stick its guns on these issues.

The findings are sure to stir both sides of this emotional debate, especially as Obama seeks to fill a new vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, where the legality of issues such as abortion can ultimately be decided.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst - An anti-abortion protester holds a sign in front of the US Supreme Court building during the March for Life in Washington, D.C., January 22, 2009. 

Is it my imagination, or are there lots of new faith coalitions and initiatives sprouting up these days?

The newest one, launched on Wednesday, is The Mobilization to End Poverty. Its main driver is Sojourners, which claims to be the biggest group of self-styled “progressive” Christians in the United States.

The coalition will hold a conference in Washington from April 26-29. The organizers describe it as a “a historic gathering where thousands of Christians and antipoverty leaders will engage in a transformative experience of education, worship, community, and activism in Washington, D.C. Together, this powerful group will call on President Obama and the new Congress to make overcoming poverty a political priority and to develop a national plan that addresses this moral and spiritual crisis.”

It would be easy to dismiss this as just another gabfest at which everyone talks about the poor while the caterers put on a good spread.

But it’s noteworthy that many of these initiatives in recent years — such as the Evangelical Climate Initiative – have come from the religious center or left. There have been many such efforts in the past (the Social Gospel movement of the late 19th century springs to mind).

Whether the initiatives from the left/center are as effective politically as the Religious Right has been remains to be seen. The latter at times excelled at pressing its agenda by getting ballot measures passed against gay marriage or by getting the vote out for the Republican Party (or both at the same time).

Dismissed by some commentators as a spent force, the U.S. conservative Christian movement remains an important base for the Republican Party — perhaps its only one at the moment.

Will the “Religious Left” or “Religious Center” become the same for the Democrats?  What do you think?

(Photo: A makeshift homeless person’s structure is seen, with General Motors Corp. world headquarters headquarters in the background. A new faith coalition wants to stamp out U.S. poverty REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Has religion turned into a vote loser in U.S. elections? In covering the U.S. presidential campaign, most analysts took religion as an important vote-getting factor and asked which candidate was appealing most to which religious group. Much was made about how the Democrats were more comfortable with “Godtalk” on the trail.

Now Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has asked whether religion has turned into a serious vote loser for the more faith-friendly party, the Republicans:

“The evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh. Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party … the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.”

Is it time for the Republicans to rethink what Parker calls their “preaching to the choir?” Is there a lesson for the Democrats here?

DALLAS - In a country where religion plays a big role in politics, U.S. Democrats have made some big gains with voters of faith.

A number of exit polls have shown that President-elect Barack Obama narrowed the “God gap” that existed when President George W. Bush, a Republican, defeated Democratic challenger John Kerry in 2004.

According to Faith in Public Life, a non-partisan resource center, and Public Religion Research, Obama increased the Democratic share of the tally among all groups categorized by how often they attend church.

The groups noted that he made his biggest gains among voters who attend church more than once a week, “narrowing a 29-point Republican advantage (64 percent - 35 percent) to a 12-point Republican advantage (55 percent - 43 percent). This represents an 8-point increase among a strongly Republican group.”

Other highlights it noted included:

- Obama won monthly attenders 53 percent to 46 percent, while Kerry lost them 49 percent to 51 percent, a 4-point pickup.

- Obama beat Republican rival John McCain soundly among Catholics (55 percent to 44 percent), performing better than Kerry in 2004 and Democrat Al Gore in 2000.
- Among white Catholics, Obama narrowed the Republican advantage from Bush’s 13-
point advantage (56 percent to 43 percent), with McCain holding only a 5-point advantage (52 percent to 47 percent).

- White evangelical Protestants remained the most reliable base for the Republican Party with McCain beating Obama among them 75 percent to 24 percent — falling only slightly short of Bush’s standing with them in 2004. This finding was similar to other exit polls such as CNN’s.

All of this is interesting stuff and highlights, among other things, Obama’s success in wooing religious voters through an outreach program and his own overt gestures of faith.

His small inroads with evangelical voters show that some in this diversifying movement hope he will support their efforts as they broaden their biblical agenda to include the fight against climate change.

His gains elsewhere, such as among Catholics, probably stem from many factors including voter concerns about the economy, which overshadowed almost everything else in the last few weeks of the election.

Going foward it raises a big question: can the Democrats hold their gains among voters of faith and even narrow the “God gap” further? What do you think?