Danforth warns growing influence of Christian conservatives

Posted on Wed, Sep. 27, 2006
Danforth warns of the growing influence of Christian conservatives
By Matt Stearns
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - John Danforth hopes there's a reckoning in the Republican Party's future.

The former Missouri senator has, in the past 18 months, become a loud - if lonely - voice among Republican grandees, waging an op-ed insurrection warning that the influence of Christian conservatives endangers both party and country.

Now, Danforth has written a book on the subject, "Faith and Politics: How the Moral Values Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together."

"I'd like to see our party debate whether or not we're a religious party," Danforth said Wednesday over eggs and sausage with reporters. "Do we attempt to energize a base or do we try to reconstitute a center in American politics? . . . I'm trying to create a backlash."

The problem with strident appeals to the base, Danforth argued, is that "the American people do not want a sectarian political party. . . . The more people pay attention to this, the less likely it is to be a good strategy."

He singled out the issue of gay marriage, which many analysts say has been a winner for Republicans in the last few years because it has energized conservative Christian voters in key states, as particularly dangerous for Republicans.

First of all, he noted, "it's an issue that has no real substance . . . it is brought forward to make people angry and win political support."

And, he said, focusing on it violates the basic Republican principle of local control: "It's clearly not a constitutional issue. The Constitution is about the structure of government . . . not about addressing social issues."

Finally, he said, time spent on it is time removed from dealing with issues he regards as substantive. "When I was in Congress, I worried all day about the budget," he said. "I never worried a minute about gay marriage. Now, it's the other way around."

Politics have also defiled Christianity "because religion is being used to create a sense of God's side versus the enemies of God's side," Danforth said.

In addition to serving in the Senate from 1976 to 1994, Danforth is an ordained Episcopal priest, so his voice is considered to have some authority at the tangled intersection of faith and politics.

Yet it's also clear that in many ways, the patrician, 70-year-old Danforth is a man out of time. His mainline Episcopalian denomination is shrinking, whereas the fastest growth in American Christianity is among culturally conservative, nondenominational evangelical churches.

He lamented that his Republican Party had "lost its mooring." Asked to name young, moderate Republican leaders who could help the party find its way back, he named 76-year-old Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter and 67-year-old Missouri Sen. Kit Bond.