Our Endangered Values

Sharpening Divisions

The lines between the major US political parties have grown sharper and more difficult to bridge. When President Jimmy Carter was in office, Congress split over issues; now its divisions follow party lines. Republicans overwhelmingly prefer military action to diplomacy, while Democrats overwhelmingly prefer diplomacy. Republicans also are likelier to think that strong environmental legislation has an excessive economic cost.

Yet these differences are secondary as a political force, overshadowed by the intensity with which a small group of Christian fundamentalist activists promotes such extreme causes as outlawing all abortions or total freedom to own guns. Such activists have seized control of the government. Thus, although the US’s basic beliefs have not changed, its policies have become more divisive.

President Carter’s Personal Religion

President Carter was raised as a Southern Baptist. On many issues, his denomination agrees with other branches of Christianity, notwithstanding some doctrines on baptism and the authority of scripture. Baptist ecclesial government once stressed local church autonomy. At that time, the Southern ...