During the late 1960s and early 1970s, many mainline churches underwent significant restructuring in which the central church organs were strengthened.  Liberals, who were generally more adept at church politics, obtained almost all of the key managerial appointments.

The Pulpit and the Pew

As a result, conservative mainstream churches are being led by liberal activist clergy.  Opinion surveys document the growing political gap between pulpit and pew.  The majority of mainline Protestant leaders have consistently voted Democratic in presidential elections: 80 percent voted for Humphrey in 1968, 74 percent voted for McGovern in 1972, and 79 percent voted for Carter in 1976.  The 1980 election provides a particularly useful point of comparison.  While 72 percent of mainline clergy voted for Carter, 69 percent of all Episcopalians voted for Reagan, as did 67 percent of all Presbyterians, 56 percent of all Lutherans, and 53 percent of all Methodists.(5)  One recent survey of seventeen Washington mainline church representatives revealed that ten placed themselves either at the same place as, or to the left of, Ted Kennedy; three placed themselves to the right of Kennedy; and three declined to answer the question.(6)

Many liberal seminaries and denominations preach a political orthodoxy of a particular left-wing variant.  Nowhere was this peculiar witness of mainline church leaders more evident than the March 1990 meeting of the World Council of Churches in Seoul, attended by liberal theologians and social activists from both North and South.  The delegates from Eastern Europe received only tepid support for their recent democratic revolutions.  Stony silence greeted the only participants--a Russian Orthodox leader from Moscow and a Hungarian theologian--who suggested that market economics had virtues as well as vices.

Many pastors would argue that because theirs is a prophetic role, they should not be bound by the atavistic norms and prejudices of their parishioners.  Ministers are indeed called upon to provide both solace and leadership to their flocks--to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted."  Like Burkean representatives, they owe their charges not only their industry but their judgement.

Yet it is disingenuous for national religious bodies or the leaders who represent them to purport to speak as one voice when their membership would not support them or is deeply divided over a critical issue.  To do so compromises the authenticity of the church's witness and in essence dooms it to irrelevance.  As a leading historian of American Protestantism noted, "Everyone knows that when the mainline churches take a position, it is only six people in a room on Riverside Drive" (the headquarters of the NCC and several mainline denominations in New York).(7)

There is no tradition of infallibility within the Protestant church.  In both the Old and New Testaments, many of the prophets were false.  Although leaders of the former mainstream churches speak passionately, and sometimes eloquently, they bear witness to ideologies and traditions that most American Christians rightly reject.  Anti-Americanism is not a useful paradigm for U.S. policy-makers who turn to the church for moral guidance.  Pacifism is a noble heritage and unquestionably based on selected biblical principles.  But it is by no means the only authoritative Christian voice and, as an absolutist philosophy, it is not very useful for statesmen who must craft policy in a fallen world.  Peace is clearly an important biblical goal, and Christians should be slow to respond to cries for the use of force.  Yet peace must be tempered with justice, which in turn must be evaluated in a more balanced and objective fashion than has recently been the case with many Protestant peace and justice committees.  Until mainline denominations are willing to undertake this task, we may be wise to heed Jeremiah's warning against false prophets who cry " `peace, peace' when there is no peace."

Robert P. Beschel, Jr., a consultant for the Carnegie and Ford Foundations, is an adjunct fellow at Harvard's Center for Science and International Affairs.  Peter D. Feaver, an assistant professor of political science at Duke University, is a post-doctoral fellow at Ohio State University's Mershon Center.

1.  "The Crisis in the Persian Gulf and `just wars,' " Commentary: The Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, December 21, 1990.

2.  James Foyle Miller, A Study of United Methodists and Social Issues (General Council on Ministries, United Methodist church) 1983, pp. 8-9.

3.  See Lawrence E. Adams and Fredrick P. Jones, "Are These Angels Really Heralds of Peace?" Religion & Democracy (February 1991).

4.  Robert Lerner, Stanley Rothman, and S. Robert Lichter, "Christian Religious Elites," Public Opinion (March/April 1989), p. 56.

5.  See Lerner, Rothman, and Lichter, p. 56.  Data on denominational voting is from the University of Michigan's 1980 National Election Survey, cited in A. James Reichley, Religion In American Public Life (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985), p. 273.

6.  See Reichley, p. 276.

7.  Martin Marty, interview with A. James Reichley, February 19, 1982.  See Reichley, p. 280.

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