How SoCons Can Win the Culture Wars - Lessons from Ultra-Orthodox Judaism

[DC Al Fine]

Lately I've become concerned with how Evangelical culture war methods have failed; not creating major change in the culture at large and even failing to prevent liberalism from growing within evangelicalism itself. This got me thinking about what alternative strategies might be pursued. An article about Ultra-Orthodox Jew's political influence in liberal NYC was published in the New York Times a few weeks ago. Here are some relevant snippets.

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This article highlights a few key lessons socially conservative Christians can take from this.

1) If you want to win the cultural war, you need soldiers, and that means babies. Lots of them, birthed young, with subsequent generations following in the same path. Women will need to marry men and start having babies at a much younger age than normal.

2) You need to minimize population losses, which means
a) Running your own schools is essential as the public schools with preach values contrary to your own.
b) Having a rituals and/or clothing that set the group apart from the general population, encouraging solidarity and making the transition out of the faith more difficult than it is for your typical lapsed Catholic or Evangelical.

3) Concentration for political purposes is important. Politicians follow votes, even though pastors cannot tell people how to vote from the pulpit for fear of losing tax-exempt status. But what the Ultra-Orthodox do is particularly notable: rather than worry about national politics where their votes are diluted in a sea of others, they care and focus on local politics, and get results for it

The Ultra-Orthodox Jews have had success with this strategy, but not every conservative Christian group will be able to apply it. Evangelicals lack the church polity and discipline to implement the strategy. Too many Evangelicals are wedded to aspects of the "liberal" lifestyle, like having 1-2 kids, and it's too easy for them to drop out of the community. In my view Evangelicals are prime candidates for liberalizing and have already begun to do so.

More likely candidates are smaller, more disciplined groups that are already acting in a very conservative manner. Fundamentalist Protestants (the real kind, not the atheist slur kind), orthodox Calvinists, and very conservative Catholics (the ones who eschew birth control and/or like their masses in Latin) all possess high birth rates and avoid public schools a bit already. Groups like this can create pockets of conservatism where they are already concentrated.

Thoughts?

[DC Al Fine]

To the posters suggesting this wouldn't work for Evangelicals, I absolutely agree. It's groups like Ultra-Orthodox Jews, orthodox Calvinists, Mormons that would be able to make this plan work. Evangelicals by their very nature aren't inclined to separate and their church structure would make it very difficult to do so even if they were inclined to be.

I'll try to address the rest of your concerns when I get a chance but right now I'm swamped.

[DC Al Fine]

Proof that "SoCons" are on the losing side of the culture wars. They can't win with logic, so they have to resort to having more children.

C'mon Hatman you're better than this and you know it. As anyone who works around politics should know, a heck of a lot more than truth and logic affects public opinion.

[DC Al Fine]

I also find it quite rash to assume that a child will be a conservative Christian simply because their parents are.  Heck, they could turn out to be militant atheists for all we know.  And as long as folks like Pat Robertson remain the symbol of modern Christianity (you can blame both Christians and the media for that one), both liberals and conservatives will pay the price for it.  You cannot simply "make the transition out of the faith more difficult" by segregating people.  In fact, you risk alienating more people in doing so, hurting the religion even further.

I think you missed his point Scott; if we took the lifestyle of the Orthodox Jews as our model, renouncing the faith would require basically disowning everything about your life, from your family to your home to your school. If we created a bubble as the Orthodox Jews do, it almost certainly would achieve that purpose as it has for the Orthodox Jews (or at least enough of one that their population is rapidly rising).

But will this hold true for people as they enter adulthood, and are no longer tethered to the customs of their families or of their communities unless their financial situations coerce them to be?  Even then, you can say you are part of the faith, but completely disown it all on your own terms, even behind those who hold you to it the most.

Scott, despite the stereotype about kids rebelling against their ultra-conservative parents, the children devout regular attenders have higher retention rates than their irregular counterparts. Part of the reason you hear about people rebelling against their fundamentalist parents is because it's somewhat abnormal and a bit controversial. An essay about someone attending the Episcopal church once a month before drifting away in college would be quite boring to read!

I think you've heard that you make it through end undergrad years as a Catholic, Evangelical, Atheist etc, you're probably going to stay that way for the rest of your life. For the less devout, it's fairly easy to convert to something else and requires little change in lifestyle. By creating a "bubble" you make the quitter put a bit of effort in to leave and make staying the path of least resistance.

[DC Al Fine]

First of all, Hasidic Jews have a well-defined culture. Christian Protestant fundamentalists have nothing so distinctive. Second, they do not consider themselves ultra-Orthodox. They don't go 'beyond' Orthodoxy.

 But point by point --

1) Those babies don't get to vote until they are 18.  If Hasidic Jews can get away with early marriage and childbirth they still have a rich cultural and educational heritage. For most others, early marriage and childhood implies the end of any intellectual development.

2a) That is costly. Private schools make sense if one is above average in income, but not if one's group is poorer than the average. Private schools with a strong ideological bent imply that one must recruit teachers from outside. Some of them might subvert the thoughts of some of their students in the interest of their welfare.

2b) Christian Protestant fundamentalists would need to develop their own tailors to create distinctive clothes not available at Wal*Mart, JCPenney, etc.

3) The Hasidic rabbis act as power-brokers and go for whoever serves the concern of the day. Christian Protestant fundamentalists have largely sold out to the GOP and have little left to offer.     

Indeed, which is why I suggest that groups with a slightly more distinct heritage would be ideal candidates for this route (Mormons, strict Calvinists, certain Catholic groups etc.)

1) I't's a long term project and many other groups have similar heritages.

2a) Part of the church's ministry in this scenario would go towards running/subsidizing these schools. The sect would surely push for vouchers as well. Also, ideologically impure teachers hasn't really been an issue in the Christian schools in my area at least. They all seem to be staffed by nuns/devout laypeople from the sponsoring church.

2b) Pretty small issue. Tailor shops/sewing at home isn't that hard to set up or do.

3) If Evangelicals stopped showing up at the polls, the GOP would be screwed. Plus they still have the pull to primary people.