Evangelicals in Exile

For the Christian right, last year was nothing short of satanic. First, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard, was forced to quit amid allegations that he enjoyed drugs and sex with a male prostitute. Then Democrats racked up a landslide victory, regaining control of both houses of Congress and ousting some of the religious right's staunchest allies, including Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Rep. Jim Ryun of Kansas and Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana.

Even worse, Americans rejected a host of measures near and dear to the hearts of evangelicals. In South Dakota, voters overturned a ban on abortion. In California, they voted against a measure requiring parental notification when teens have abortions. In Arizona, they rejected an amendment outlawing same-sex marriages, and in Missouri, they voted in favor of stem-cell research over the militant opposition of evangelicals. In Kansas, where a backlash against the Christian right has been building ever since the state tried to impose the teaching of anti-evolution "intelligent design," voters ousted Attorney General Phill Kline, who had made a career out of hassling and intimidating abortion clinics.

"The 2006 election was a total repudiation of the Karl Rove version of conservatism," says Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University. "The social-rightist version of the Republican Party was defeated everywhere but where the social rightists thrive: the Bible Belt." Unless the GOP can reinvent itself and appeal to moderate and independent voters, warns Gans, it "may be consigned to where they had been from 1932 until the late 1960s -- a distinctly minority party."

The sweeping defeat has left many evangelicals feeling angry, depressed and shellshocked. For the first time since they seized control of the Republican Party more than a quarter century ago, some on the Christian right are talking privately about breaking away from the GOP. "At the end of the day, America has a two-party system -- but a third party can be a spoiler," says a top official at a leading Christian-right organization. "I don't know what's going to happen, but anything's possible."

Other evangelicals favor sitting out next year's presidential campaign -- or even dropping out of politics altogether. David Kuo, a longtime activist on the Christian right who served as President Bush's deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, suggested that evangelicals take stock and consider the "negative spiritual consequences of political obsession." And a recent survey on Beliefnet.com, a nonpartisan forum on religion and spirituality, found that four out of ten evangelical voters now favor the idea of Christians taking a two-year "fast" from politics.