The Kingmaker’s New Subject

There is an old hymn written by Fanny Crosby, sung at generations of camp meetings, which exclaims: "Crown Him! Crown Him! Prophet, and Priest, and King!" Since the emergence of evangelicalism as a cultural force in the 1950s, three approaches to politics, represented by three personalities, have emerged. They are the prophet, the priest and the kingmaker.

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The prophet has been psychologist James Dobson, who dispenses child-rearing advice on the radio from his Colorado ministry, Focus on the Family. On family issues, Dobson's counsel is moderate and broadly appealing. On politics, his tone sharpens. He rails against compromise on social-conservative issues and seems continually poised to storm out of the Republican Party in protest, threatening to carry his millions of listeners with him.

The priest has been Billy Graham, nonpartisan confessor to presidents from Harry Truman to George W. Bush and presider at public events from Inaugurals to services of national mourning. His commitment to preaching the simple, undiluted Gospel has been total, but his approach to politics has sometimes been naive; his uncritical ties to the powerful have occasionally left him subject to manipulation. The priest was burned by a misplaced trust in Richard Nixon.

The kingmaker has been Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network. Robertson has a history of odd and disturbing public statements on issues from the causes of hurricanes to the assassination of foreign leaders. But as the son of a senator, he has generally taken a pragmatic approach to politics, with the goal of being a player rather than a prophet. After his own bid for the White House, Robertson founded the Christian Coalition to give the religious-right grass-roots clout within the Republican Party.

Graham's priestly role in American politics is gradually passing. But both of the other evangelical tendencies have been recently on display. Already in the current political cycle, Dobson has declared he could never support Rudy Giuliani, John McCain or Fred Thompson because of their various personal and political shortcomings. And a few weeks ago he participated in a Council for National Policy meeting which threatened to bolt the GOP if Giuliani is its nominee.

The kingmaker has gone in the opposite direction. Robertson's public endorsement of Giuliani last week surprised many. It should not have. His predisposition has always been to influence Republican politics from the inside. He has doubtlessly received assurances from Giuliani on the appointment of conservative judges and is calculating he can maintain influence within a Giuliani administration. But Robertson's endorsement of a pro-choice candidate has exposed deep political fault lines within religious conservatism. Add to this Paul Weyrich's endorsement of Mitt Romney, and Sam Brownback's support for McCain, and religious conservatives are fragmented as never before.