Justifying the Means

A review of Protestant and American Conservatism: a Short History by Gillis J. Harp. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019.

This is an important book, no matter which side of the religious/secular or progressive/conservative battle lines you occupy. Gillis J. Harp sets out to trace the confusing, confused, and tangled threads of conservatism in American religion.

Harp begins with the first English colonists, who arrived with a conception of society as “stratified, organic, and communal.” (The “communal” element of their thought soon turned largely individualistic and soon the stratification had to do with wealth.) Puritans saw their right to govern as based in their covenant with the Christian God. For the Puritans, a Protestant Christian theocracy was therefore necessary. For many Christian conservatives, this is still the ideal in theories such as Dominionism, Reconstructionism, and theonomy.

However, Enlightenment thought seeped into the colonies, including the ideas of individual rights, freedom of conscience, John Locke’s social contract theory, and Deism. The social contract implies that government is a choice of the citizens, not an election by God. Christian conservatives have gone back and forth on which of those is true. Often opportunistically.

Might a “compassionate conservatism” based in churches solve the social ills of the US? The dominant Calvinism of early Protestant Christianity appears to have squelched any such idea. In the late-nineteenth century when many mainline Protestant denominations began to overtly participate in the left-leaning Social Gospel movement, a permanent rift occurred between progressive and conservative Christians. Liberal elites became increasing secular; poor Euro-Americans became convinced that the US Constitution was divinely inspired and that the Founders had all been pious Christians.

This question of whether of not the US was established as a Christian nation has become central to the culture wars. As with much having to do with US politics, very little nuance occurs in the argument. Another reason all sides of the battle should read this book: Harp adds valuable nuance to that question. Hint: it isn’t as simple as either side makes it out to be.

From the founding to the Civil War to now, Dr. Harp makes a compelling narrative of Christian Protestant conservatism. Along the way, we learn that conspiracy theories and demonizing opponents are far from new. We learn of the power of black-and- white thinking and motivated reasoning. Chiefly, we see a tragedy unfolding in which many Americans have become as politically shallow as their theological thinking.

To simplify Harp’s conclusions only a bit: conservative American Christians have often chosen politics first, leaving theology to the academics. Harp writes, “As they turned more narrowly partisan, evangelicals and their political thinking became increasingly unmoored from theological convictions.” This propensity answers that much discussed question: How can evangelical Christians support Donald Trump? Evangelicals “have thus sometimes employed dubious means to achieve laudable ends.”