The Social Gospel and Political Attitudes A Proposal for the 2010-2012 Evaluations of Government and Society Study Eric L. McDaniel Department of Government University of Texas at Austin emcdaniel@mail.utexas.edu Keywords: religion, social welfare, values Introduction The following proposal seeks the addition of a social gospel measure to the 2010-2012 Evaluations of Government and Society Study. The social gospel is a religious interpretation that invokes religious people to care for the less fortunate. The addition of this measure will enhance our understanding of how religion influences policy preferences, political attitudes, ideological attachments, vote choice and participation. Significance and Theoretical Contribution The 2008 election presented an interesting phenomenon within the American political discourse: religious beliefs were pitted against each other. In recent history, the Republican Party has been able to monopolize the use religious cues to garner support for conservative candidates and policy agendas. In 2008, the Democratic Party s candidate, Barack Obama, was on par with John McCain s use of religious rhetoric. Further, his use of religious rhetoric was in direct opposition to that of President Bush and John McCain. Obama s campaign harnessed the power of religion to generate support for a liberal policy agenda that contradicted much of the Bush administration s policies and John McCain s platform. The religious rhetoric of President Bush pitted good versus evil, while Obama s religious message evokes a need to care for each other (Sheeran 2009). This recasting of religion also presents a shift in the ideological battle. No 1
longer are the culture wars framed as the secular versus the religious (Green et al. 1996; Hunter 1991), there is now an internal battle amongst the religious about what their true calling is. The traditional religious ideologues focus on the sinfulness of man and the need to achieve salvation; the progressives focus their attention on the sin of inequality. The progressives framing of issues is most obvious in the health care reform debate. President Obama has framed his discussion of health care reform as a moral obligation (Hefland 2009). He has used phrases such as give justice to the poor, taken from Proverbs, to justify his quest for a more equitable health care system. In defending his reforms from critics he has stated that they are bearing false witness, taken from the Ten Commandments. Seeing an ally in Obama and the ability to fulfill their religious duty, several faith groups have taken up the cause of health reform arguing that it is not a question about liberty or finances, but one of morality (Gilgoff 2009; Rosen and Clement 2009; Salmon 2009; Thomas 2009; Walling 2010). These groups are appealing to religious Americans who believe they are morally obligated to help the less fortunate. President Obama has repeatedly leaned on these groups to mobilize support and combat opponents (Hefland 2009; Rosen and Clement 2009). Many have argued that the election of Obama and the health care debate have renewed people s attention to the social gospel (Sheeran 2009), a Christian religious interpretation that calls on people to eradicate social and economic disparities. Social scientists, historians, and theologians have long noted the importance of the social gospel in American politics (Morone 2003). However, most of this work has focused on elites and mass movements; it is not clear how this religious ideology influences the behavior of ordinary citizens. By accounting for adherence to the social gospel in the EGSS we can better 2
articulate how religion influences attitudes and participation. Scholars of religion and politics have been calling for greater attentiveness to how religious people come to understand the requirements of their religion (for examples see: Benson and Williams 1982; Glock and Stark 1965; Mockabee, Wald, and Leege 2007). Recent research has demonstrated that the established measures of religion provide a great deal of leverage in explaining behavior, but there are still large inconsistencies. For example, researchers have long noted the difference between Black and White Evangelicals (Calhoun-Brown 1998; McDaniel and Ellison 2008). The former is the cornerstone of the Democratic Party, while the latter is the cornerstone of the Republican Party. The explanation given for this stark contrast is that they possess differing understandings of what their religion requires of them. Scholars have noted the social gospel as the primary reason for this gap (Morone 2003). By accounting for religious interpretations, such as the social gospel, we fill some of the gaps in regards to how religion influences political behavior. Social Gospel The social gospel maintains that every Christian has an obligation to both herself and to society as a whole (Curtis 1991). As a result, individual salvation is either difficult or impossible to achieve without attempting to create a moral and equal society. Walter Rauschenbusch (1918), one of the early proponents of the social gospel, defines sin as selfishness and the sinful mind as the unsocial and anti-social mind (50). Thus, a concern for the well-being of others is the heart of the social gospel. This is stressed by another early proponent, Richard Ely, whose discussion of the concept social solidarity emphasizes that human beings are not isolated individuals, but instead are participants in a vast, interconnected network of interests, 3
possibilities and responsibilities (Musser and Price 1992, 448). Further, Rauschenbusch s theology also conceives of a Kingdom of Evil that occurs whenever any in the society undergo pain and suffering (81). The end goal of the theology is a Kingdom of God, which means a world lacking political and economic inequality (142-3). While the formal movement would fade out in the 1930 s, its elements continue to exist and evolve in the religious discourse (Morone 2003). An example of this is the current Progressive Christian movement. As the social gospel further developed, adherents have argued that God is on the side of the oppressed and have argued that it is the place of Christians to defend the rights of the poor and disadvantaged (Hendricks 2006; Wallis 2005). This religious belief system requires ardent involvement in guarding the disadvantaged and challenging systems that create inequalities. The Black church has been noted as one of the primary places in which the social gospel thrives. During the civil rights movement, leaders, such as Martin Luther King, argued that it was a religious duty to fight discrimination and inequality (Morone 2003; Morris 1984). While the interpretation is primarily seen as a Protestant belief system, the Catholic Church s emphasis on social justice, such as its opposition to the death penalty and support for social welfare, serves as an example of it in action. Pope Benedict XVI s recent comments on creating a fair global economy that would reduce inequality and protect human and worker s rights (Duin 2009), expresses core teachings of the social gospel. This social justice message is not just the rhetoric Catholic elites, Gorney (1998) noted that Catholic anti-abortion activists also place a strong emphasis on the need to provide adequate social welfare for the care of children once they were born. The Evangelist Jim Wallis, through his magazine, Sojourners, stresses the need for Christians to expand their focus beyond issues of abortion and sexuality to address poverty 4
and social inequalities (Wallis 2005). Further, recent reports of young White Evangelicals shows a growing concern for addressing poverty and racial reconciliation (Banerjee 2008; Edwards 2008; Rosin 2007). Proposed Questions To accomplish the feat of measuring a religious interpretation, a survey was conducted in the spring of 2009 using a convenience sample of 452 undergraduates from the University of Texas (85.3%) and the University of California (14.7%). The majority of the respondents (56.7%) identified as Christians. The respondents were recruited from classes where they were given credit for participating. To assess their adherence to the social gospel, respondents were asked to state their level of agreement, on a five-point likert scale, to a battery of 32 statements that represent adherence and opposition to the social gospel. The statements were developed from an examination of the literatures reflecting the core tenets and criticisms of this religious interpretation. Given that the social gospel is mainly a Christian religious interpretation, the analysis is limited to those who identify as Christians. The responses were then analyzed using principal components factor analysis. From the analysis six statements, three positively worded and three negatively worded, were selected to represent adherence to the social gospel. The statements were selected on the basis of how well they reflected the core tenets of the social gospel, limited redundancy, and had high levels of clarity. The positive statements reflect the interconnectedness of humanity as well as the religious duty to protect the less fortunate. The negative statements reflect the criticisms of the social gospel, specifically the true nature of salvation. To further test the validity of the measure, I performed a confirmatory factor analysis. The results from this analysis confirm the findings from the principal components 5
analysis. A more detailed examination of these statements and the measure can be found in Table One. [Insert Table One Here] The statements were placed into an additive index, scaled to range from zero to one, were one represents maximal adherence to the social gospel. An examination of the measure demonstrates that is has a high level of reliability (alpha =.72). To test validity, I correlated the measure with established measures of predispositions, policy attitudes, feeling thermometers, ideology and partisanship. As expected, the measure has a positive and significant correlation with egalitarianism (.22), universal health care (.31), welfare (.31), redistribution of wealth (.28) and the Obama feeling thermometer (.30). The measure has a negative and significant relationship with economic individualism (-.13), the death penalty (-.28), the McCain feeling thermometer (-.16), identifying as a conservative (-.36) and identifying as a republican (-.31). After establishing the measure with the student sample, I administered the measure to two adult samples, a national sample in 2009 and a Texas State sample in 2010. The measure upholds in both of the adult samples. The national sample has an alpha score of.60, while the Texas State survey has an alpha score of.69. Given these findings, I feel assured that this is a reliable measure. These measures were then applied to regression models attempting to explain a variety of political attitudes. Along with the social gospel, the models controlled for religiosity, denominational affiliation, biblical literacy, demographics and ideology. In these models the social gospel maintained a significant correlation with a variety of attitudes, such as support for health care reform and approval of President Obama. The measure was also the most consistent and strongest of the religion measures in these models. 6
To further examine the validity of the measure, I examined how it related to value priorities. The 2010 Texas State Survey allowed me to examine how adherence to the social gospel influenced value priorities. The respondents were asked to rank eight goals (eradication of poverty, gender equality, racial equality, instilling a strong work ethic, protecting traditional values, environmental protection, completely free market, and limited government) in order of importance. The results from this analysis found that those with the lowest level of adherence indicated that the eradication of poverty was least important, traditional values was the most important. Those at the highest end of the measure indicated that eradicating poverty was most important, while traditional values was second most important. Conclusion Given the growing use of religious language by political elites on both sides of the aisle, it has become increasingly important for scholars of religion and politics to create more nuanced measures of religious belief in order to better understand how religion influences political behavior. By providing researchers with an additional dimension of religion, the incorporation of the social gospel measure can accomplish this. 7
Table One: Support for Social Gospel % Agreement Social Gospel 2009 Student 2009 National 2010 Texas Survey Sample State Survey God instructs us to protect the poor 70.7 64.2 81.4 Failure to confront social unfairness is a sin 24.9 33.2 49.7 Social justice is at the heart of the 36.8 32.4 48.7 Gospel God is more concerned about individual 32.9 45.9 69.5 morality, than social inequalities* Addressing social issues distracts people 19.8 17.3 31.7 from achieving salvation* Building the kingdom of God on earth is only about bringing people to Christ, not changing social structures* 17.6 39.8 65.7 Mean.57.54.51 Alpha.72.60.69 Analysis limited to those who identify as Christian The 2009 National Sample is from the University of Texas Money and Politics Survey The 2010 Texas State Sample is from the University of Texas Texas Poll Survey 8
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