Good Citizens? Religious Conservative Activists in American Politics

As anyone with an ear to hear or an eye to see knows, the question of religion’s effects on American politics (and democracy more generally) has been the subject of a great deal of debate in recent years. Scholars and pundits alike have poured forth a torrent of arguments analyzing religion’s relationship to voting patterns, political attitudes, civic engagement, and, of course, bowling leagues. In the American context, much of this work has been critical, especially of our most politically visible believers, those conservative Protestants known alternatively as Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and a few other terms probably not suitable for publication. Amidst the jeremiads rather hysterically warning of coming theocracies or religious wars (or both), though, there persists a more sober and careful set of concerns about how religion might and does affect the viability, stability, and quality of modern pluralist democracies.1 A central part of these concerns is the worry that religious traditions, especially as they become engaged politically, might shape individuals ’ political attitudes, capacities, and beliefs in ways damaging to democratic prospects. In short, many scholars worry that religion will (and does) produce citizens lacking in civic virtue and filled with civic vice. This is certainly not an unreasonable set of concerns, but in this paper we suggest that there i