A few years ago, around the time that President Donald Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, I was speaking to a Texas GOP group. Because of the embassy move, some of the attendees were describing their frustration that American Jewish voters still largely vote for Democrats, despite Democrats’ support for the Palestinians and the GOP’s support of Israel.
“Well,” I said, “let’s see if this meeting begins with a prayer in Jesus’ name.” I got very puzzled looks. Sure enough, this meeting of a political party began with an impassioned Christian prayer.
Now, before anyone concludes that this is going to be an anti-Christian screed, don’t go there. I originally moved to Texas to attend Dallas Theological Seminary. I’m a flawed but quite serious Christian, and my Christianity is far more important to me than my politics.
Instead, this is a plea to my fellow Texas Republicans to stop conflating Christianity with conservatism.
Religions are how human beings seek transcendence. For Christians, this means demonstrating loving loyalty to Christ by emulating his life and following his teachings.
Political parties, by contrast, are about winning elections. They have no other reason to exist. And the way you win elections is to put together a broad coalition of diverse factions that coalesce on a set of issues.
Narrow coalitions, in which the parties focus on purifying themselves down to pluralities rather than majorities, result in election after election where outcomes are determined by a percentage point or two, or that depend on the Electoral College to offset the loss of the popular vote.
Both Republicans and Democrats seem determined to narrow rather than broaden their bases by insisting on purifying rather than broadening themselves. Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute has observed that “it seems both parties are content to lose rather than determined to win.”
For Democrats, “only the purest” seems to mean those who reject any limiting principle on identity politics, wokeness and federal spending. The crazier the better. This is a narrow base.
But for Republicans, especially Texas Republicans, “only the purest” seems to mean only Christians.
I often speak to Republican groups. It’s astonishing to me how many of these groups start with Christian prayer and host pre-meeting prayer sessions or Bible studies. Imagine being Jewish Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Taoist, Shinto, or just a garden-variety agnostic or atheist and showing up at the local Republican group.
My fellow Texas Republicans, we don’t make this easy. It’s tough enough to be an ethnic minority in a room full of older white people, but then imagine the impression we give them that Christianity is essential to being a Republican. No wonder these folks don’t feel welcome.
The Institute for Policy Innovation, which I lead, is conservative, but we never have invocations at our public events because that’s not part of our mission. Our mission is evangelizing for limited government and free markets, not for Christianity. And we want to work with everyone we can, regardless of their other views.
The mission of the Texas GOP should be to win elections, and in an increasingly diverse and secular Texas, building a winning coalition means not “othering” people who want to be Republicans but who don’t share your Christian beliefs. We Texas Republicans should make everyone feel welcome to join. Demanding that a political party be a monoculture is literally the opposite of building a broad, winning coalition.
By all means, Christians should engage in Bible studies, prayer groups, religious instruction, evangelism, personal devotion and other practices. But these things should not be part of a political meeting where the goal is building broad coalitions.
It’s progressive leftists who confuse politics and religion. Environmentalism, social justice and wokeness are all ways people who have rejected God seek a substitute means of attaining transcendence.
Christians, however, are taught that “my kingdom is not of this world” and that we are to “set [our] affections on things above, and not on things of this earth.”
If your Christian beliefs drive you to being a Republican, that’s great. But if a non-Christian’s beliefs drives them to the party, they should not be made to feel like second-class members through the tyranny of a Christian Republican majority.