Evangelicals today probably have more political influence in the United States than at any time in this century. But we are largely squandering this historic opportunity. Why? Because today's evangelical political voices are often confused, contradictory, and superficial. Evangelicals lack anything remotely similar to Catholicism's papal encyclicals and episcopal pronouncements on social and political issues, which have provided Roman Catholics with an integrated framework for approaching each concrete political decision. Evangelicals have jumped into the political fray without doing our homework. That our confused, superficial activity has had little lasting impact should not surprise us.

Take the issue of "school prayer." Evangelicals are all over the waterfront on this issue. Popular evangelical preachers blast the Supreme Court for "outlawing prayer in the schools," simplistically blaming this legal decision for America's moral decline. Congressman Ernest J. Istook (R-Okla.) wants a constitutional amendment to protect voluntary school prayer. Others want constitutional, or at least legislative, action to guarantee equal benefits to adherents of all religious groups. (One devout evangelical congressional aide was attacked by her home congregation as an apostate because she and her evangelical boss in Congress preferred the latter proposal to the Istook amendment.) Still other evangelicals think all of the above proposals would violate the First Amendment and destroy the boundary between church and state.

It is hardly surprising that this level of naivete and confusion leads nowhere. In fact, as Ralph Reed points out, it easily results in evangelicals being used. In Active Faith, Reed reports on the way Ronald Reagan manipulated the issue of school prayer to mobilize the evangelical vote in 1984. As Reagan's advisers prepared for the 1984 campaign, they realized they had "tossed only a few morsels to the Moral Majority." So they decided to stage a fake drive to pass a constitutional amendment on school prayer. First, they asked a conservative senator to do a head count. When he reported insufficient votes to pass the bill, the Reagan staffer replied, "Good, we just wanted to make sure that it could not pass before we began the battle." The whole House then rallied the leaders of the Religious Right and promised to twist arms to pass the bill on the prayer amendment. But it was all a farce. Evangelicals did not understand either the politics or the substance of the issue.

Or consider evangelical pronouncements on the role of government. Sometimes, when attacking government programs we dislike, evangelicals adopt libertarian arguments that would preclude almost all government activity to promote economic justice ("Helping the poor is a task for individuals and churches, not the government"). Then when the issues change to abortion, euthanasia, and pornography, the same people loudly demand vigorous government action.

The absence of a consistent ethic of life leads to absurdly selective moral judgments. Some evangelicals make the sanctity of human life (up to birth and just before death) the overriding issue and neglect the way poverty and smoking destroy millions. Other evangelicals, eager to point out that racism, poverty, and environmental decay all kill, seem strangely indifferent to the reality of abortion.

Our superficiality and confusion result in part from the fact that we have seldom taken the time to work out carefully the specific policy implications of biblical faith. Too often our agenda is shaped more by secular ideologies or polling data and focus groups than by divine revelation. Evangelicals urgently need a political philosophy. It would not solve all our political problems. But it would help.

Every political decision, of course, is grounded in some normative framework and some social analysis. But it is simply impossible, every time one wants to make a political decision, to spend the days (actually years) necessary for reviewing the mountains of relevant biblical material and complex studies of society.

We need a framework, a road map, a handy guide--in short, a political philosophy--for help in making concrete political decisions about who to vote for and what legislation to endorse. An evangelical political philosophy would articulate a view of government, human rights, the relation of church and state, democracy, private ownership and market economies, civil society (especially the family), and the like.

I have no illusions that most evangelical political disagreement would disappear even if multiple miracles produced a widely accepted evangelical political philosophy. Finite sinners that we are, we would still argue about its implications for specific public policy proposals. A common framework, however, would help in several ways.

First, agreement on a basic framework would help us to identify more common ground on specific issues, which would result in having a greater impact.

Second, only if we develop a common vision that can sustain evangelical political engagement over the long haul will we produce any lasting political change.

Third, if evangelical Protestants (I include African-Americans and theologically orthodox Christians in the older Protestant denominations) developed even the beginnings of a common political philosophy, we would be in a better position to cooperate with Catholics in shaping public life. Few potential political developments are more important. If evangelicals and Catholics learn how to cooperate, this majority could significantly reshape American politics.

A possible process

It would be foolish to try to sketch a detailed process for developing an evangelical political philosophy widely embraced by a broad cross section of evangelicals in the United States. The venture is enormously difficult. Success can only come at the end of a lengthy journey that will inevitably involve detours and land mines. Pilgrims on the journey will need to improvise at each stage.

However, three things, at least, seem clear to me. The process must include a wide range of evangelical voices; the goal should be limited; and the engagement of major evangelical gatekeepers is indispensable.

If the result is to be of any lasting significance, then we must involve a wide range of evangelical voices. I could sit down today and sketch an evangelical political philosophy that many members of Evangelicals for Social Action would largely endorse. Ralph Reed could do the same for the Christian Coalition. What would help, if it could be developed, is a broad framework that both Ralph and I, plus a wide cross section of people who identify as evangelicals, could embrace as a guide for our concrete political engagement.

Second, our goal must be limited. Not even this raving optimist supposes that we could agree on a detailed, full-blown evangelical political philosophy across the range of views that exist within the evangelical community.

For example, we do disagree, however incoherently, about the proper role of government. Therefore a comprehensive, common statement on the role of government would be impossible. But would it not help if a broad range of evangelical voices could together reject both libertarianism and socialism and then together define some general criteria for when and how government should and should not intervene in market economies?

The same would be true in a variety of areas. It would be helpful if we could agree together on the basic parameters of a consistent pro-life position, on how to balance the free exercise and nonestablishment clauses of the First Amendment, and so on. If from the beginning we agree that our goal is a limited, incomplete evangelical political philosophy that different groups will develop further in divergent ways, we might at least be able to state a basic framework that would help us overcome some of our naivete, confusion, and disagreement.

At first glance, our task appears to be nearly impossible. Evangelicals do not have a pope or bishops who can, with some authority, articulate an evangelical political philosophy. Instead, we have a confused babel of more or less influential gatekeepers whose words are respected within their larger or smaller constituencies. Thus, the project will succeed only if leaders representing a broad spectrum within the evangelical community endorse the process and sign the resulting document.

Earlier I said one cannot specify a detailed process in advance. A few possible steps, however, can be suggested. A dozen or two key gatekeepers could meet to launch the effort, draft a preamble outlining the need, sketch the beginnings of common ground on central issues, and invite a larger advisory body of gatekeepers to join them in endorsing the process. Then a dozen or two of their scholars would need to work over many months to hammer out a first draft, using whatever mix of working conferences, e-mail exchanges, and so on they discover to be most helpful. After another conference in which the larger advisory body would meet with specialists to refine the document, the resulting draft could be circulated widely, as were the major papers that provided the foundation for the Lausanne Covenant. After the smaller team of scholars incorporated appropriate suggestions, a final conference of gatekeepers could refine, sign, and agree to publish what they might modestly call, "Toward an Evangelical Political Philosophy."

Could it be done? Would it be concrete enough to be of any help? God only knows. I, for one, believe it is worth the effort.

-Ronald J. Sider is president of Evangelicals for Social Action. He is the author of many books, including most recently Genuine Christianity: Essentials for Living Your Faith (Zondervan).

Copyright© 1997 by Christianity Today/Books & Culture Magazine.