I have a Guest Commentary in the new issue of Boston-based Public Eye magazine. It is adapted from my essay in Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America. Here is the first part:

The main reason why the Religious Right became powerful is not what most people may think. Some would undoubtedly point to the powerful communications media. Others might identify charismatic leaders, the development of“wedge issues,” or even changes in evangelical theology in the latter part of the twentieth century that supported, and even demanded, political action. All of these and more, especially taken together, were important factors. But the main reason for the Religious Right’s rise to power has been its capacity for political action, particularly electoral politics.

Meanwhile, over on the Religious Left, many of the ingredients are present for a more dynamic movement. But the ingredient that is most remarkably lacking on the Religious Left is the one that made the Religious Right powerful: a capacity for electoral politics. Indeed, there has never been anything on the Religious Left on the scale of say, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority or Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition—or even any of dozens of significant Religious Right groups—including the 35 state political affiliates of Focus on the Family—that have had any significant national or regional electoral muscle.

Conservative evangelicals have figured out what it means to be a Christian and a citizen. This new identity easily integrates Christian nationalist ideology and notions of Christian citizens’ place in history, which in turn helps to inform and to animate their politics. It is in this sense that the ideology of Christian nationalism—America as a Christian Nation—mixes with theology. It appeals to those invested in the idea that they are living in the end times (á làwriterTim LaHaye and Pastor John Hagee) and nonapocalyptic, long term theocratic political activists.

While many fine organizations on the Religious Left, broadly defined, register voters and even mobilize them when elections roll around, I know of none for whom building electoral power and changing elections is a central activity. Even worse, some see electoral politics as a waste of time and even a tacit endorsement of the excesses of the power structure. I do not agree with such dour assessments, nor do I think that electoral politics is a panacea.

Here is what I do think: (Much more)