Religious-Political Movement Failures

Ethics Daily today reran my Birmingham News column on Roy Moore's failed gubernatorial run and what it means for movement politics. Other election news items this week suggested similar problems for conservative Christian candidates. For instance, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in South Dakota who urged pastors to endorse him from the pulpit (and thus risk their tax-free status) and was aligned with the "TEA Party" movement, came in a very distant third place in the race. Although the few pastors who took up the effort apparently did little to help the candidate, the action of one pastor did spark a IRS complaint filed yesterday by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Similarly, in California there was an effort to defeat state judges and replace them with conservative Christian judges. However, the four judicial candidates overwhelmingly lost their bids to unseat the judges. It will be interesting to see if these movements find more success in other races.