In this Times article, Ted Widmer, in a mode typical of liberals who realize they need to court Evangelicals to win the White House, seems to have found a historical connection between liberalism and Evangelicalism.

For most of American history, evangelicals were Democrats or their equivalents, profoundly uncomfortable near the temple of the moneychangers. Jefferson attracted huge numbers of voters simply because his running mate, Aaron Burr, was the grandson of the great evangelist Jonathan Edwards. In the 1920s, William Jennings Bryan was lampooned by H. L. Mencken as an ignoramus catching flies in a sweaty courthouse during the Scopes trial, but that snide dismissal overlooked Bryan’s long career as an advocate for progressive causes.

Wait, I’ve heard this before, right?  It goes something like this: Evangelicals used to be liberal and progressive, like when they marched with Dr. King and were for the abolition of slavery and women’s voting rights, but their ignorant (or is it cunning?) leaders duped them into voting Republican for the last thirty years. 

The problem, of course, is that “progressive” can mean many different things (it can men new, different, or simply the quality of things that I want to happen in the future).  Another problem is that many “liberals” during the last 300 years of American history believed very different things than “liberals” today.  Take the abortion issue.  At present, the established law looks at this as an issue of women’s rights.  And so, it seems “progressive” to be pro-choice, pro-abortion.  And it seems counter-progressive to be pro-life, pro-fetus.  But in 100 or 500 or 1,000 years, historians might (I say might) look back and see that it was really an issue of children’s rights.  And so it would seem much more “progressive,” historically, to be pro-life.

All that to say, these Democrats trying to find a kinship with Evangelicals by saying, “Hey, we love the same things!” is only half-true, just as half-true as it is when Republicans say it.  It may be true that a lot of Evangelicals may desire to be co-belligerents with Democrats, given certain ideas about global warming, poverty, etc.  Just like it’s true that, for the last three decades, Evangelicals have been co-belligerents with Republicans on issues of taxation, the family, and the like.  I suppose that when you’re co-belligerents for long enough, you start to adopt the philosophies of your comrades, for better or worse.  Usually for worse.

In the end, I think it’d be probably be best for believers to consider ourselves no more than co-belligerents with whomever we align ourselves, Republican or Democrat.  Once we start calling ourselves one or the other, we’ve ceased to be discerning about what’s most important, which is that our political decisions be based on God’s word, not man’s.