Evangelicalism Vs Conservatism Analysis

Finally, the major theme both sides agree with is that “there exists a transcendent moral order, which we ought to try and conform the ways of society.” (Kirk 7). A big fear for both sides is that liberals hold no absolute morals because “there is a secular faith here in the capacity of the ‘autonomous’ individual to create his own moral order, to perfect his humanity by a process of original ‘creativity’” (Kristol 2. 157). This is problematic because it can lead to arbitrary laws not based on moral grounds; “If society—if the state gives us the rights, it can take them away—they’re not inalienable” (Schaeffer 2). Conservatives hold that there are absolute morals which should guide the way our society is shaped. If there are no absolute morals,

the society can always manipulate them to conform to a certain goal or ideology. Both conservatives worry is that “modern secularism has such affinities to moral nihilism…” (Kristol 1. 381)
Although there are not very strong disagreements in ideology between modern and evangelical conservatives, there are some major differences in their respective political engagement, their political community, and…
The first major differences between these two groups is their political engagement strategies. In general, Conservatives have had a much wider range of political issues than evangelicals, who seem to pick and choose their battles instead of facing all the issues that face the country. Evangelical conservatives were not at the forefront of the civil rights movement, as many modern conservatives were. Furthermore, when they did pick battles, it tended to be issues that directly affected themselves; “They [Evangelicals] defended Christian schools against regulation… they fought against the Supreme Court decision that put tighter restrictions on school prayer and removed many state limits on abortion… “evangelical political engagement is negative, censorious, and oppositional.”(Gerson) This can be explained by the evangelical idea that their way of life and culture is under attack from an aggressive liberal opposition. They tend to see their rights as fragile, and being ever encroached upon (Gerson) “We are now losing those freedoms and we can expect to continue to lose them if this other world view continues to take increased force and power in our county.” (Schaeffer 3). This view that evangelicals are under attack helps explain their limited political engagement because if they feel like their values are under attack, they are only going to be concerned with defending their own issues.
Modern conservatives, on the other hand, don’t face this problem as much as Evangelicals because conservativism in and of itself is not an ideology but “…a way of looking at the civil social order.” (Kirk 6). This also explains why conservatism is not an ideology, because each society is different so a ‘conservative’ in that society would be influenced by the established norms. This has allowed modern conservatives to engage with almost all major issues that liberals contend with. Furthermore, modern conservatives
A second area where evangelical and modern conservatives differ regards the type of political community each side has formed over history. Not all modern conservatives are religious, but evangelical conservatives rest much more of their ideology, community, and thought within the evangelical sphere. This has limited the amount of diversity within the evangelical movement, compared to the modern conservative movement. As pointed out by Gerson “nearly all denominations with large numbers of evangelicals are less racially diverse than the country overall.” (Gerson). This could partly be explained by evangelical’s over-reverence of the traditional family. As stated before, evangelicals hold the family as central to societal life. With this in mind, it is not hard to see how other ‘traditional’ elements of society, like segregation, have made it much more challenging for evangelicals to diversify to other races. It is much easier to identify an evangelical community because their traditional values tend to keep their community in a bubble, and this plus the feeling that they are under attack has made many go into defensive mode. Defensive views tend to work better for keeping people in the community who were already there to begin with, it is less effective in attracting new membership, especially across racial lines. Defensive views can also give the impression that the group is self-interested, because they refuse to engage with issues when it doesn’t directly affect them.
Although modern conservatism has also suffered from a lack of diversity, it has not been as extreme as the evangelical conservatives.

Largely, this is because “the [modern] conservative seeks to protect the elaborate social edifice which, under Providence, has developed in America—our government of laws and not of men…” (Kirk 44). The major difference between these two views is the evangelicals come across as defensive, while this view comes across as prudent. This tendency toward caution, instead of self-protection leaves modern conservatism open to more people than evangelical conservatism. However, modern conservatives could help bring evangelicals become more diverse because they “…[understand] the importance of religion in the life of the political community” (Kristol 1. 381). In other words, evangelicals do not have to defend their views with modern conservatives like they do with liberals. This allows for better political discourse, thus better diversity. This means that evangelicals could potentially change political engagement from defensive, to prudent. This in turn would help diversify evangelical Christians because they could focus their energy on adding to the discourse instead of defending what they feel are constant encroachments on their

lives.
Lastly, the final point where these two sides differ involves their roots. That is, how they came to believe what they do in modern times. Modern conservatives “chosen enemy was contemporary liberalism, not socialism or statism in the abstract” (Kristol 1. 379) This was how modern conservative thinking evolved from old conservatism, who chose the latter. Modern conservatives banded together around their disdain for the new liberalism and its ideas.
Although Evangelicals share distain for liberals, their roots are much different, and this can help explain a lot of their views. For evangelicals, their roots extend back to great reformations, “whether it was the great awakening before the American Revolution; whether it was the great revivals of Scandinavia; whether it was Wesley and Whitefield…” (Schaeffer 11). Schaeffer argues that these reformations are what brings social change. This can also be explained by their religious preferences, so they tend to advocate for another religious reformation, while modern conservatives do not generally argue this position as strongly. Evangelical conservatism also extends much farther back than modern conservatism, and the importance of ‘great awakenings’ or religious revivals have been key in keeping their historical influence; “the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival that had touched millions of American lives in the first half of the 19th century” (Gerson). There was also many differences in denominational beliefs (Gerson). As time went on, however, evangelicals cut off their old roots and “embraced traditional religious views, but it did not propose a return to an older evangelicalism. Instead it responded to modernity in ways that cut it off from its own past. In reacting against higher criticism, it became simplistic and overliteral in its reading of scripture” (Gerson). This is where the true roots of modern evangelicalism lay, not in the pre-civil war period or early in the 19th century, but a fundamental change in thinking that happened during the days of Woodrow Wilson (Gerson). There is still an emphasis on revivals today, but it is much more specific and biblically literal than past movements. This also started their isolation into the bubble of evangelicalism, which was discussed in a prior paragraph.
Modern conservatives and evangelical conservatives share most ideological and political ideas. What differs is the reasoning behind some of their beliefs, the roots that have laid the ground for their respective contemporary thought, and their political engagement in society. Conservatism will continue to manifest itself in American politics through both modern and evangelical thinking.