My experience in the evangelical Protestant community has been that there are two main ways people find themselves becoming evangelical Protestants.  The first is they are born into it, grow up in it, and know no other concept of reality.  I met a lot of these types of people in Nashville, where I lived and worked for eight years.  Theirs was a whole different life experience than mine.  I met quite a few people who were never allowed to listen to secular music in their homes until they were out of high school.  My household never had religious music on except at Christmas.   I took a popular Christian singing group to Abbey Road Studios in London one time to record the orchestra for their record, and the entire "Beatleness" of the experience was completely lost on them.  I brought them into Studio Two, a shrine if there ever was one in pop musicdom, where the Beatles recorded almost everything they ever did, and they just stood there befuddled, humoring me, wondering what the big deal was.  When I pleaded for them to sing a Beatles song, any Beatles song, if for no other reason than they could someday tell their kids or grandkids that they had done it there, in Studio Two, they shuffled their feet and looked at each other and one of them finally asked politely, "Was Yesterday a Beatles song?"
          I point this out not to embarrass them, but merely to illuminate the cultural gap that exists between many people brought up in the "Christian bubble," and most of the rest of American society.  It is absolutely not surprising to me how most of these particular type of Christian votes, or what the majority of them believe.  Indeed, it is most surprising to ever meet anyone born, raised, and still nourished in the evangelical bubble who does not conform to the stereotypical political norms that their faith and their acculturation inscribes into them.  
          The second way a person often becomes an evangelical Protestant Christian is through variations on the way that I did; it usually involves a conclusion made at some point in the early to middle stages of adulthood that one's life, for any of a million reasons, is in need of spiritual renewal or intervention.  Sometimes a person simply feels a hole in their life, and material things aren't filling it.  Sometimes this need for renewal comes about with having children, and feeling the need to connect those children to a moral foundation to counter the values being promulgated all around them.  For others, it comes after reaching the end of one's rope which has been fashioned by their own strong will, and finally surrendering to the idea that they simply can't live any semblance of a decent or valuable life powered by their own stubbornness.  In many cases, these are people who are returning to faith on some level; either they were brought up in another faith tradition (say, Catholic) and had fallen away, or they had been Protestants as children and had let go of their faith, as so many do, around college age.
          Surely there are more ways than these to find yourself a member of an evangelical Protestant church, but I would imagine that a majority of people fit one of these two models.  I relate to the second group of folks the most, being one of them myself.  And I find myself struggling to understand how it is that, when faced with the fork in the road, most of this second group went right, and I went left.
          I've heard it postulated that many of these people might have looked at the values of the left as the very ideas that they needed to leave behind if they wanted to start anew.  There is probably some truth to this, as we tend to think of the left as less disciplined, more likely to live and let live, and certainly less associated with organized religion than their counterparts on the right.  It is also probable that conservative Christians got to them first.  This is not a bad thing; on the contrary it is the very sense of belonging to a community of good, solid, moral people that is attractive to someone facing a spiritual crisis.  I know–it was very attractive to me.  The congregations at today’s evangelical churches are by and large very welcoming people.  For the most part, they show a great deal of patience and empathy with people in various stages of alcohol and drug abuse.  
          What began to happen was, as I gained more and more understanding of who Jesus was and what His teachings were all about, and at the same time accelerated my studies of history and political science, I found myself more and more at odds with the conservative positions that many of my Christian friends were taking.  The Jesus that I had begun to know and had grown to love seemed to have almost nothing in common with right-wing Republicanism.  Most of my Christian friends, however, were either staunch, long-time Republicans, or became Republicans almost immediately upon conversion.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't a qualification of converting.  No one asked me, and there wasn't a Republican voter registration card shoved in my face when I accepted Christ as my personal Savior.  No one at the churches that I have attended has ever said that you couldn't be a Democrat and come to that church, although in most of them you probably want to keep that fact to yourself unless you are very comfortable and confident in expressing your political views.
          So, then, why is it? Why does my understanding of Jesus cause me to go left when so many of my friends and fellow Christians who worship the same man are swayed to the right? Why is it that I could listen to my pastor’s sermons and be in almost total harmony with what he was saying theologically, but if we were to have a political discussion (which we did) we would find ourselves ideologically 180º apart? He’s a nice man and I like and love him, and I’m an okay guy and he likes and loves me.  We both share a desire for the unsaved to know Jesus and to accept Him as their personal Savior.  Yet with the exception of the act of abortion, I can’t think of one thing that we would politically agree on.  What, if anything, does Jesus have to do with this? In the last ten years the more that I have studied, the more I have read, the deeper I have gone–the farther and farther "left" I have strayed. People tend to think of this in almost exclusively economic lingo.  When you say "farther left," most people think reflexively, "communist," or "socialist." While I do have some serious issues with capitalism as it is being perpetrated by the United States and its Western allies, my "leftness" has much less to do with macro-economic systems than it does with the simple way that the American government treats less fortunate people both in our own country, and around the world.  My "leftness" has a lot to do with my love for and understanding of Jesus Christ and His teachings.  I wish there was a better way to describe my political state of mind, because the terminologies of "left" and "right" and "liberal" and "conservative" really belong to another era, and carry around so much baggage as to render these words meaningless, at least to me.  Heck, when I think of a word like "leftist," it conjures up images that scare me.  It makes me think of being hauled before the McCarthy Committee in the early ‘50s and having to deny that I am a Soviet spy.  And yet, the way the rules in the manual have been written, I can't see where else I fit.  It is the Conservatives, by and large, over the past twenty-five years who have determined where the center is, and the rules governing what determines where one fits on the spectrum.  And by their reckoning, I'm left.  Way left. Way, way left.  That's fine with me–I'm comfortable where I am on that spectrum, and confident in expressing why.  In fact, I've never been so sure of where I am politically and what I believe spiritually as I am today.
          The fact remains, though, that I sat out there on the left end of that spectrum pretty much alone in the evangelical world in which I lived and worked.  I moved with my family to Nashville, Tennessee in 1994, and worked for eight years in the Christian music industry doing all kinds of things, from being an artist, to being a producer, to writing songs, to finally working at a Christian record company.  I would have to say that 90 to 95% of the people I worked with were Republicans.  I may be way off on that, but if there were more Democrats, they knew better than to tell anyone.  The Christian Democrats that I knew about were the drinkers and smokers, the crazy fringe people that most people liked, but wouldn't want their daughters to marry.  It would be easy to assume that because it was Nashville, that meant we were in the South, so it was inherently conservative.  The fact is most of the people in the Christian music business in Nashville came there from all over the country, with the largest contingents from California and New York, Florida and Michigan, Massachusetts and Texas.  Okay, Texas, I understand.  I would say that the percentage of people born and raised in the Christian bubble, as opposed to coming to it later in life, was about fifty-fifty.
          So what I have yet to figure out is, why or how did most of those latter fifty percent of people, many of whom were artists and musicians, individualistic and not prone to following too closely to the rules, become card-carrying conservative Republicans?
          For starters, I think abortion has a lot to do with it.  Most Christians I know think that you can't be a Democrat and be pro-life.  While it is true that more Democratic politicians are pro-choice than not, there are both Republican politicians who are pro-choice, and Democratic politicians who are pro-life.  In my opinion, being pro-life is about much more than abortion.  I will have more to say about this topic in Chapter Five.  Abortion is a very important issue for Christians, and it should be a factor in choosing politicians.  It shouldn't be the only one.  It shouldn't even be the only pro-life issue when choosing a politician.  What is their view on the death penalty? What is their position on war? How about gun control? How do they plan on addressing the issue of poverty in our country and around the world? What is their plan for the environment? To me, these are all issues of life; every one of these issues is vital to saving lives, or taking lives.  The Bible teaches us that every life is sacred–not just the ones that we're personally attached to.  I think many Christians simply haven't thought this issue completely through. They just stop at abortion, and that's it.
          Randall Terry has probably been the most visible anti-abortion activist in the country.  He is the founder of Operation Rescue, a militant Christian pro-life group.  He said this: "Who can imagine that a God on the pro-life side might be willing to overlook 'a little bit of murder' or take no offense at the murder of babies as long the concerned parties are given ample notice that it is to occur?" He was talking about abortion, and I agree.  I would then presume that Mr. Terry would've been picketing outside the White House to get the Bush administration to stop dropping bombs on innocent babies in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I never saw him out there.
          Another thing I often hear is that many Christians vote Republican because they don't like the government intruding in their families' lives.  Along side of that is the idea that they want less government in general.  You can also throw in there that they want to pay fewer taxes.  To take the last thing first, I don't know a single person out there who wants to pay more taxes.  Everybody wants to pay fewer taxes.  Some people want other people to pay more taxes, but nobody wants to pay Uncle Sam more money.  Citizens expect their roads to stay paved, their sewer systems to function properly, their police and fire departments to be timely and efficient, and their libraries to stay open, but they never seem to want to pay for these things.  They also talk of patriotism out of one side of their mouths, but don't want to pay for our foreign adventures out of the other.  Many Christians also tithe, which means systematically giving 10% of your income to the Church, which is a biblical principal.  This means that for the faithful Christian, they are already in a higher tax bracket before they start, so to speak.  You are allowed to deduct your tithe from your income tax, but only at the rate you are taxed.
          As for more or less government, this is a big myth brought to us by the right-wing propaganda time machine. There was a time, forty, fifty, or sixty years ago when true Conservatives wanted less government–less agencies, less bureaucracy, no deficit spending, less social programs, even less Defense spending because many Conservatives were also isolationists.  This was also during the time that the Democrats were introducing many different forms of government interventions to pull the country out of the Depression, and these government interventions continued into the Sixties with the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson.  This has all changed.  The election of Richard Nixon in 1968 ended most of these distinctions, and since then, from a spending and bureaucracy point of view, the only differences are those of emphasis, not of size.  The people who control the Republican Party today are not our fathers' or certainly not our grandfathers' Conservatives.  In fact, they are not really even Conservatives.  They have created more government agencies, with more bureaucracy than ever.  They have certainly embraced deficit spending, and have gone crazy with Defense spending.  The only thing today's Republicans are in favor of cutting back on are social programs for the poor, even though Jesus said, "Whatever you did not do for the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do not for me" (Matt. 25:45).
          Concerning the subject of government intrusion into our lives, the Patriot Act is the single most intrusive government document ever written.  Created in an amazing six weeks after the 9/11 attacks with little Congressional debate, the Patriot Act significantly increases the surveillance and investigative powers of law enforcement agencies in the United States.  Simply stated, this act allows law enforcement and intelligence agencies much easier access to monitor private communications and access personal information.  The Act does not provide, however, for the system of checks and balances that traditionally safeguard the civil liberties that are so important to our freedom.  There is no question that the inability to gather intelligence and share it with other intelligence agencies in a timely manner was a major failing in the run-up to 9/11.  I happen to think, though, that much of what is contained in the Patriot Act is an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of the blowback from fifty years of questionable foreign policy decisions.  To the extent that they know what is in the Patriot Act, many people probably feel, with some justification, that the Act is only intrusive to the extent that one has anything to hide.  In a perfect world, law enforcement agencies would only use their expanded powers to catch the bad guys that these provisions were created for.  What I fear is that this has given our government unprecedented powers to silence dissent if it so chooses.  Remember back to the Sixties, when the FBI had wiretaps on Martin Luther King's phone lines, and had infiltrated anti-war organizations for the purposes of disrupting them.  The road to a repressive state begins much like this.  
          My goal here is not to debate the relative merits of the Patriot Act.  I am only pointing out for those who have long lamented the intrusion of the government into their lives, this Act has invited the government into our computer, into our mail, into our local library, into our answering machine, our cell phone, and any and all of our personal and heretofore private information and transactions with banks, our doctors, cable companies, schools–basically you name it, they can see it without asking us.  This will help them catch bad guys, but it's extremely intrusive.  
          Understand–this is not a long-winded plea to join the Democratic Party.  Most of my Christian friends assume that because I lean heavily the way that I do politically,  I am a member of the Democratic Party.  I am, in fact, a registered Independent.  The Democrats, as seems typical for the party not currently in power, are mostly long on criticism and short on solutions.  I would merely hope that this might cause open-minded Christians to pause and think about our political decisions more deeply, or holistically, to use a really apolitical term.  Once again, my greatest joy would be that more Christians would become true Independents, and vote in each election for the candidates that truly represent the closest thing to "WWJD" on all of the issues taken as a whole, not on just a few hot-button topics.  My road, after much reading, investigating, prayer, and meditation, has led me much of the time to the left.  Your road may well lead to different destinations, which is great, as long as we all take the time to pause and ask for directions along the way.


          I come from a politically and religiously interesting and diverse family.  My father is an almost Libertarian-style conservative Republican.  Just keep the government off his back and out of his life and he's happy.  He thinks George Bush Sr. is a Liberal.  He's a devout Catholic and was a high-ranking executive at General Electric for many years until he retired.  My mother, a college math professor who died of Alzheimer's almost two years ago, was not particularly vocal about politics, but tended to vote with my father.  My oldest brother is a staunch Rush Limbaugh Conservative–a classic 'angry white male', who absolutely hates anything that smells like a Democrat or a big 'L' liberal.  He is also a devout Catholic and has raised three lovely children with tolerance and grace.  The tragic loss of his oldest child, Sean, in a car accident a few years ago has seemed to soften his anger.  My 'younger' older brother is a quiet Libertarian–an economic Conservative and a social Liberal.  He is an atheist and a quantum physicist who works for NASA, and is married with one stepchild.  My older sister is an artist who lives in the Northeast.  She is not particularly political, but is a nominal Democrat in most ways.  I think she would find it easier to talk about what and who she doesn't like, rather than define a political philosophy of her own.  She is agnostic, but is attempting to instill some religious values in her children by taking them to church on a semi-regular basis.  My younger sister is a far-left Liberal, almost leftist.  She is politically active, puts her walk with her talk, and generally espouses the kinds of causes that drive people like my oldest brother crazy.  She and her husband are Ba’Hai. She has one child from a previous marriage.
          The talk is lively and interesting at family reunions.  My dad always said, "If you're not a Liberal at twenty-five and a Conservative at fifty, there's something wrong with you".  I think that there are many people in this country that would agree with him, but unfortunately, his youngest son is not one of them.