Grove Finds Evangelicalism Influences Voting But Not Political Participation
Posted Feb 20, 2019
Does evangelicalism lead to greater political involvement? In his senior thesis, Matthew Grove analyzes data from the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS) and finds that evangelicalism itself does not lead to greater political involvement. Instead, the higher socioeconomic status of evangelicals probably explains their political activity.
It is accepted today that evangelicals are an important force in American politics but that has not always been the case. After the Scopes Monkey Trial in the 1920s, many evangelicals began to retreat from politics. However, that begin to change in the latter half of the 20th Century as more evangelicals became concerned about abortion, pornography, prayer in schools, feminism, creationism, and anticommunism. While evangelicals came out to support one of their own in Jimmy Carter in 1976, evangelicals began to move toward the GOP and strongly supported Ronald Reagan. Organizations like Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority began and laid the groundwork for Pat Robertson’s run for the presidency in 1988. Robertson then used his campaign organization to create the Christian Coalition which sought a seat at the GOP table and even tried to take over the party in some places. Many evangelicals were thrilled that another one of their own became president in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush. He appointed conservatives to the courts and opposed same sex marriage. However by the Obama Administration, support for social conservatism began to decline and evangelicals today have begun a defensive action to maintain their place in the public square.
Most studies of evangelicals in politics tends to focus on who they vote for and why. Fewer examine whether evangelicalism itself spurs evangelicals to participate in politics beyond voting. With the rise of evangelical political institutions, many evangelicals have outlets to participate in politics beyond voting. Moreover concerns with moral decline (Lorentzen 1980; Campbell and Monsoon 2008) or political strategies designed to increase evangelical participation (Claason and Povtak 2010) may lead them to engage in higher levels of participation such as persuading others to vote for a candidate, work on a campaign, participate in a march, or something else. However, not all scholars agree. Some argue that evangelicals will participate less because they spend more time volunteering for their church (Campbell 2004) or the conservative beliefs of the church dissuade members from participating (Schwadel 2005).
For his senior thesis, Grove tries to provide further evidence to answer this question. He uses the PALS data which is a survey of Americas to better understand family relationships, health, civic participation and volunteering, moral and social attitudes, and race and social issues. His dependent variable, political activity is a measure of the number of political activities that a citizen engages in beyond voting and includes signing a petition, participating in a protest or demonstration, giving money to a political party, group, or candidate, attempting to persuade someone to vote for a particular candidate or party, contacting a public official, and working for a political candidate or party.
His independent variables are evangelical (born again or not), education (no high school diploma – professional/doctoral degree), income, interest in politics (5 point scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree to statement on interest in political affairs), and strength of party identification (strong partisans to weak partisans to independents). Education and income are two socioeconomic variables that should lead to greater participation as members high in these variables are more able to understand politics, are more directly affected by politics, and have more leisure time to participate. Interest and strength of party identification may also affect participation as those more interested would engage in more political activities and those with stronger party identifications are more committed to their party which should lead to more participation.
Using regression, Grove finds that evangelicalism is not s predictor of political activity. Instead, the traditional measures of education, income, partisan strength, and political interest are statistically significant. He finds this both in 2006 when conservative social issues had greater support and 2012 when they had less support. While evangelicalism may influence who someone votes for, it does not lead to greater political activity. While some might argue that evangelicals view time spent volunteering in church as more effective than political participation, the results suggest otherwise. Evangelicals are no longer less educated or less affluent than in the past and in many people’s minds. Instead, they are more affluent and educated in the past which leads to greater political interest and partisan commitment. It is likely that these factors explain their participation today and any increase that has happened over time.
References
Campbell, D. E. (2004). Acts of Faith: Churches and Political Engagement. Political Behavior, 26(2), 155–180.
Campbell, D., & Monson, J. (2008). The Religion Card: Gay Marriage and the 2004 Presidential Election. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 72(3), 399-419.
Claassen, R. L., & Povtak, A. (2010). The Christian Right Thesis: Explaining Longitudinal Change in Participation among Evangelical Christians. The Journal of Politics, 72(1), 2–15.
Emerson, Michael O., and David Sikkink. Portraits of American Life Study, 1st Wave, 2006.
Lorentzen, L. J. (1980). Evangelical Life Style Concerns Expressed in Political Action. Sociological Analysis, 41(2), 144.
Schwadel, P. (2005). Individual, Congregational, and Denominational Effects on Church Members’ Civic Participation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44(2), 159–171.