Quiet Revolution: The Christianization of the Republican Party

Evangelicals and Catholics are making inroads few fully realize.

by Rod D. Martin
September 30, 2002

Ask Christians today where they stand in the Republican Party, and many of them will tell you a tale of woe.  The Christian Coalition was a flash in the pan, some say:  it sold them out and disappeared.  A few talk of bolting to a third party, although the trickle out to those has reversed in recent years.  Many are disheartened, and speak of “better days.”

The truth, though, is startlingly different.

Earlier this year, Campaigns and Elections, trade journal of political professionals, published a report entitled “Spreading Out and Digging In”, a follow-up to its decade-old study on the strength of the Christian Right in state Republican parties at the beginning of the Gingrich revolution.

Its conclusion?  Christian conservatives now hold a majority of seats in 36% of all Republican Party state committees (or 18 of 50 states), plus large minorities in 81% of the rest, double their strength from a decade before.  They are weak in just 6 states (plus D.C.)…