"The Truth About Conservative Christians"

E.J. Dionne has this interesting review of a new book by Fr. Andrew Greeley and Michael Hout, "The Truth About Conservative Christians:  What They Think and What They Believe."  Here's the heart of the piece:

Of conservative Christians, they write: “Insiders and outsiders alike misrepresent, misperceive, and stereotype this large and diverse segment of American culture.” They conclude on the same note. In their final paragraphs, they write: “In our experience most of those who stereotype the conservative Christians do not know any of them.”

One of the reasons this book does not match most analyses of conservative Christians is that Greeley and Hout recognize what many other students of the subject don’t: a large number of theologically conservative Christians are African Americans, the nation’s most loyally Democratic group. Arguing that conservative Christianity is allied with conservative politics makes sense, they write, “only if you want to exclude Afro-American Christians from the ranks of the religiously conservative.” They continue: “But that is a groundless exclusion. Their ‘Evangelical’ credentials are as good as anyone else’s, in some cases marginally better.” Indeed.

And, here is Dionne's conclusion:

All this suggests that a significant share of the white Christian community, including Evangelicals, is willing to hear alternative arguments to those offered by the Right. Greeley and Hout believe the best arguments for Democrats are about economics. “Get economic justice right,” they argue, “and the conservative Christians held back by economic injustice will back you.”

For those who find themselves somewhere on the left side of politics, this is a hopeful view. And it’s certainly true that Democrats cannot win if they are not persuasive on the issues of social justice, economic insecurity, and the shift of risk away from corporations and government onto individuals.

But the very complexity of the human beings Greeley and Hout describe suggests that this economic appeal will not be successful unless it is part of a larger moral message. Conservative Christians-and Americans generally-worry about their paychecks but also about whether they can spend enough time with their families. They care about the economic opportunities their children will have and also about the values their children will inherit. They care about their own economic interests but also seek nurturing communities that are about more than money.

Creating a practical moral politics is not the explicit goal of the authors. Rather, by reminding us that conservative Christians are more interesting and more complicated than many think, Greeley and Hout have once again turned conventional wisdom on its head. In doing so, this book gives liberals a scolding and offers them some hope.

I suspect that Dionne is right when he says that an "economic appeal [to conservative Christians] will not be successful unless it is part of a larger moral message."  It seems to me, though, that this "larger moral message" might have to be a bit more "conservative" on the hot-button issues than Dionne's paragraph suggests.