A Dark Moment For the Evangelical Church

As you may be aware from an earlier post that in October 2008 Ted Stevens, the Republican Senator from Alaska, was convicted on seven felony counts. Though many in his party encouraged Stevens to withdraw his reelection bid, he did not do so. The day after the election is appeared that Stevens would win a narrow victory, but when the absentee ballots were included, Mark Begich won a narrow victory with 150,728 votes as against 147,004 for Ted Stevens.

Prior to the charge and conviction Stevens was assured of victory. Clearly the public turned, and rightly so, against him. According to exit polls, independents who make up 46% of the population voted heavily for Begich (53% versus Stevens 40%...7% would not say). Those who are moderate in their ideology (about 46% of voters) went strongly for Begich, 57%, versus Stevens at 37%.

If independents and those who are moderate in their views heavily went to Begich, and such groups make upon a significant block of voters, how in the world did Stevens come so close to winning?

The answer is that a large social group of voters who made up 26% of voters voted for Stevens by 68% versus Begich at 26%. The group that voted for Stevens almost three to one are evangelical Christians. That’s correct, evangelical Christians, the group that preaches justice, ethical behavior, accountability as well as the importance of social and family values supported Stevens more strongly than any other social group!

It keeping with their belief system, evangelical Christians should have been amongst the first to cry for Stevens’ resignation and the social group least likely to vote for him. Instead, most evangelical pastors remained silent or issued statements of support for Stevens. They dismissed his unethical conduct as not being truly unethical or illegal. The evangelical believers, the same group that ranted and drove for Clinton to be impeached for having oral sex with an intern and then lying about it, is willing to explain away and dismiss political graft, kickbacks and bully tactics.

What message is sent to the non-believer and skeptic by such a heavy vote? Yes, clearly there is a disconnect between what born again Christians claim are critical values and their actions in the voting both. Not only does the evangelical message about accountability, ethics and family values starts to ring hallow to those outside the faith so does the claim that the Spirit of God guides and directs their lives and thoughts. The skeptic is left to conclude is that either the claim is false or that a holy God directed them to vote for an unethical convicted criminal. With the latter, it does not give a favorable picture of God. Clearly, to their shame Alaskan evangelicals voting so strongly for Stevens does not speak highly of the evangelical message and evangelicals in general.