GOP Loyalty Not a Given For Young Evangelicals

[babylonsister]

GOP Loyalty Not a Given For Young Evangelicals

By Krissah Williams Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 15, 2008; Page A01


DULUTH, Ga. -- Jonathan Merritt is a Baptist preacher's son with a pristine evangelical lineage. It was his dad, the Rev. James Merritt, who reportedly brought President Bush to tears in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks when he called the president "God's man for this hour." The Rev. Jerry Falwell was like a grandfather.

"I grew up believing an evangelical couldn't be a Democrat," said Merritt, 25. "The two were mutually exclusive."

But in the past year, as the presidential campaign has focused on the country's problems, Merritt has begun to question the party of his father. There was his recent revelation that "God is green," a mission trip to orphanages in Brazil that caused him to worry about global poverty, an encounter with a growing strain of politically liberal evangelicalism that has taken off online, and a nagging sense that Bush's unpopularity has been an embarrassment to the evangelicals who overwhelmingly voted for him.

"When you look at the political party that has traditionally championed poverty, social justice and care for the least of these, it's not been the Republican Party," said Merritt, who now considers himself an "independent conservative" and is unsure whom he will vote for in November. "We are to honor the least of these above even ourselves. It's very difficult to reconcile totally."

He is part of a growing group of young born-again Christians standing on one of the many generational breaks surfacing in this election cycle. Merritt still shares his parents' conservative convictions on abortion, a core issue that forged Falwell's Moral Majority and brought evangelicals firmly into the Republican camp, but he says they are no longer enough for him to claim the Republican Party.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081403446.html

[ladjf]

1. I would rather the evangelicals support Democrats than Republicans.

However, I don't think that they should be actively involved in partisan politics at all. If they have a role in shaping society's values, and I'm not sure that they do, it should be in the realm of theology.

[babylonsister]

2. I just want them to use their heads and vote Democrat. I'm glad to

see they're not blindly voting rethug because their parents did/do.

[AlinPA]

3. It irks me when they take one person and make a story that generalizes like that.

I don't buy it. The evangelicals will be be out in force with the fundamentalists in October waving their bibles, crosses and flags screaming about gay marriage, abortion, creationism, prayer in schools and Muslims in our midst .

[WinkyDink]

4. The young ones I know, in Texas and Virginia, are die-hard Republicans. They must not be aware of

the Sermon on the Mount.

[kitfalbo]

5. Heh

Sometimes I think they know more about the Party line for the republicans than about what Christ taught about or represented in the bible.