Protestant ministers of all denominations throughout the United States responded with candor and directness to CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S inquiry: “What change for the better in American affairs do you desire for your candidate if elected?” More than 2,000 clergymen, participating in this representative sampling of personal conviction, mirrored their long-range concern for a brighter America.
Their answers hold a significant interest not simply for the victors at the polls, but for the large and influential Christian community in American life.
In its pre-election news section (Oct. 29 issue), CHRISTIANITY TODAY reported that its random sampling of ministers from all states indicated favor for President Eisenhower over Governor Stevenson by eight-to-one. These percentages were more than confirmed by many hundreds of additional replies received after press time. Yet the manses, parsonages and rectories of America left no doubt that, whichever party would be triumphant at the polls, the national scene calls urgently for specific improvements during the next four years.
The wide disparity between the eight-to-one ministerial vote and the public vote generally sounds a warning against regarding ministerial conviction as an automatic index to the public mind. Less disparity exists between the Protestant clergy and Protestant church members, doubtless, than between the clergy and the citizenry as a whole. Yet the clergy are often motivated more intensely (dare we say, always more highly?) and their statistics provide a specialized index of opinion.
Ministers expressed deep conviction that the future of America depends more upon the application of spiritual concepts in national and international life and less upon a specific political party or candidate. The pulpit popularity of President Eisenhower in his re-election campaign sprang from his identification with an attitude of faith in God and in objective moral norms more than sheer party considerations, although policy issues bore conspicuous weight.
Facing The Right Way
Ministerial anxiety for the enhancement of national life is not confined simply to one party or shade of political conviction. It included, however, an underlying confidence in the direction given to political life by the Eisenhower administration. This accounts, no doubt, for the relative absence of any radical indictment of prevailing American outlook. Almost one in eighteen of the ministers who voted for Eisenhower in both 1952 and 1956 in effect wrote: “No change; he is doing O.K.” Endorsement of policy ran considerably higher among pro-Eisenhower clergy who had no vote in 1952. Better than one in three in this category urged simply that he “keep up the good work.”
Although no sense of panic prevails about the temper of national life, the ministerial hope for the future nonetheless incorporated the hope of dramatic change. Appreciative of the fact that America in the last four years had been put somewhat more conspicuously “under God” than in recent decades, they shared no illusion that “God’s in the White House (or hovers very near),” as a writer in The Manchester Guardian recently opined. The significant proposals came from clergy of Republican and Democratic vision alike, as well as from those identified with neither party. They came from ministers who supported the same candidate both in 1952 and 1956 as insistently as from switch-voters.
Foreign Policy A Concern
CHRISTIANITY TODAY returns were tabulated as pro-Eisenhower, pro-Stevenson, and Others (Undecided), with special alertness to switch-voting. In almost every block of clergy votes, an improved foreign policy during the next four years was marked the greatest imperative. Ministers who switched from Stevenson in 1952 to Eisenhower in 1956 provided the lone exception, for they assigned greater urgency to the pursuit of an aggressive and realistic program of racial desegregation.
Dissatisfactions over foreign policy ran deeper than agreement on a satisfactory alternative. Many recommendations were vague and general, favoring a program more vigorous, stable and progressive. The goal of “continuing maturity” and of “less sporadic moves” in foreign policy was vigorously pressed.
Specific suggestions for implementing a program of strong world leadership were not lacking, however, and ministers sought to outline elements of “a more decidedly Christian foreign policy.”
Clergymen voting for Stevenson both in 1952 and 1956 suggested that a realistic grasp of international affairs would involve less reliance on military measures and more active support of international cooperation.
Clergymen twice supporting Eisenhower also worked their creative concern for continued progress and integrity in world affairs into specific suggestions for the easing of international tension. Only occasionally was there a protest against “many blunders” and a demand for “changes in the State Department,” for example, “get rid of Dulles.” Most expressions reflected a more moderate pursuit of “wise and planned foreign policy.”
Specific recommendations divided almost equally along four lines: world peace, the United Nations, foreign aid, and long-term moral perspective.
International Morality
An aggressive spiritual-moral international policy was a recurring plea. Ministers asked for “foreign relations from idealistic principles and not from opportunistic motivation,” for “world security built on a trusting spiritual level, and less on military spending,” for “more consistent emphasis on spiritual values,” for “continued stress on moral and spiritual uplift.” “Russia is ahead of us in propaganda,” wrote one minister, adding a plea for good will. Virtually all who touched the subject asked for a tougher policy with Russia: “less bending before Russian bluff,” “a firmer stand toward Russia … whose pledged word cannot be trusted. Oh, for a Teddy Roosevelt!”; “more drastic stand against Russia and the Communist party,” “no dealings with Russia, no recognition of Red China,” “firmer policy with regard to Red Countries, and passage of the Bricker amendment.” On the positive side were suggestions like: “stand up more firmly for freedom all over the world,” “help the colonial states obtain independence.”
The subject of future relations to the United Nations was as frequently raised. Some clergymen, without any reference to the U.N., urged greater appreciation of world responsibility: “internationally-minded government,” “improved relations with Far East and India as well as Near East,” “more interest in under-dog nations,” “less nationalism, more world vision.” But nationalistic emphasis was not lacking. Comment on U.N. participation was sharply divided, with a seven to five edge for those favoring greater activity. Opposition to U.N. participation was often strongly worded: “take U.S. out of the U.N. and U.N. out of the U.S.”
Pursuit Of Peace
Yet Protestant ministers reflected the need for greater determination in the pursuit of world peace. Only one minister, however, went so far as to urge “peace at any cost.” But others stressed the need for “creative world-peace pursuits.” One in five of the ministers who stipulated world peace as the major concern of the future called for a lessening of preparation for war: “cut spending for war efforts,” “less emphasis on bombs and materials of war,” “more effort on international disarmament.” On the positive side, ministers urged a stronger peace program “by a firmer stand on equity,” “work diligently for international friendships,” “work in the interests of world peace through the U.N.”
Foreign Aid
The controversial subject of foreign aid drew wide suggestion of future overhauling. The conviction that foreign aid should be reduced outweighed that emphasis that it be increased three and one-half to one. For increased spending came such sentiment as: “more Point IV aid to backward foreign peoples,” “more liberal policy of aid to needy peoples or nations,” “use of U.S. power, food, natural resources for world-wide peaceful progress,” “more foreign aid—in the form of raising their standard of living.” On the negative side, ministers urged curtailment, but only one called for “cancellation of foreign aid.” The prevailing tenor was for “foreign aid—but less,” “re-evaluation of our foreign give-away,” “a gradual weaning from federal giveaway.” Suggested principles of limitation were: “stop aid to Yugoslavia,” “support freedom and justice only in foreign policy,” “foreign aid reduced and the money used to improve America,” “quit trying to buy friendship from other nations,” “less military, more economical and technical assistance.”
Changes From Eisenhower
Foreign policy aside, the main areas of hoped for improvement revealed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S poll, by those who had supported the Eisenhower candidacy twice, were ranged in the following order of priority: readjustment of the economic outlook (10%); intensification of the spiritual-moral emphasis (10%); decentralization of government, with stress on state rights (7½%); implementing of desegration (3½%); anti-liquor legislation (2%); more vigorous policy of church-state separation (1¼%); more vigorous anti-communist program (1¼%); federal aid to schools (1%). The only conspicuous counter-trend was in the priority assigned by almost 4% to “care for the little man,” mostly in the interest of the farmer. The antisocialist sentiment (3%), included in the figures for decentralization of government, was frequently linked to a plea for curbing labor unions. The top priority was given foreign policy by just under 11% of the clergy twice supporting Eisenhower.
The issues just indicated accounted for half of the returns in this category. They do not reflect, however, vigorous pleas (although in lesser number) for curtailing military spending, special interest legislation, and for increasing old age benefits, strengthening social security laws, improved solution of the Palestine refugee problems, and scores of other problems assigned first importance by individual clergymen.
The Undecided Vote
The “undecided” vote included almost twice as many ministers who had voted for Eisenhower in 1952 as for Stevenson, and as many who had not voted in 1952. Some reflected dissatisfaction with both major parties and candidates. “We need a new party, or a candidate who will dare to commit himself to constitutional government,” wrote a New York City pastor. One Indiana minister wrote that he would vote for “nobody,” and another, “either the third party or none at all.” A Florida minister said he is still looking for a candidate “who will balance well all interests in American life—labor, financial interests, segregation.” The bulk of the disappointment over President Eisenhower’s first term concerned the failure to reverse the trend to socialism, and the failure to curtail the huge foreign aid program and to reduce taxes at home. The plea for a stronger anti-communist foreign policy, for an end of creeping socialism (“get government out of business”), for drastic reduction of expenditures and taxes, represented more than half the replies in this category. The defection from Governor Stevenson reflected greater confidence in the current Republican foreign policy, despite criticisms, than with the Democratic alternative. A number of “undecided” ministers called for a firmer stand on church-state separation, asking, for example, for “a positive stand on freedom of religion wherever American money and troops are sent abroad” and for a cessation of federal aid “to any church-sponsored institutions at home and abroad.” Undecided ministers voting for the first time showed, proportionately, the greatest concern over the liquor traffic in America, coupled with a marked determination to vote the Prohibition ticket. Ministers in at least five states called insistently for outlawing the liquor traffic.
Risks In A Lobby
CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S poll of Protestant ministers dramatizes the risk of attempting to express “the position” of a denomination—either the views of its clergy or of the church members—on political and economic issues.
Among Protestant clergymen, remarkable diversity of conviction prevails on the direction in which spiritual priorities are to be applied, and hence on social issues of the day. Protestant ministers do not receive socio-economic directives from a church hierarchy, which imposes upon them an official ecclesiastical “party line.” The turmoil of conflicting Protestant opinion on far-reaching social issues may provide little comfort for those who feel that the church should vote and act with one mind on the political scene. But the unanimity which the church should have is the proclamation of the Gospel of personal salvation, which in turn shapes a new social order by shaping new men. The fact of conflict in assessing politico-social options is not wholly disastrous, although in some respects it grows out of a departure from the principles of biblical social ethics—as when Christianity is identified, as it has been by liberal thinkers, with pacifism, Communism, or some other “ism.” For biblical principles applied even to secondary options will have a way of inspiriting them and lessening their lameness.
But the stark fact of disagreement on leading social issues is a reminder that official church agencies only at great risk constitute themselves pressure lobbies for specific politico-economic objectives. Seldom do they actually have a mandate from the ministers of their churches, let alone the laity, to absolutize such objectives in the name of their denominational constituencies. In doing so, they run the peril of violating democratic rights within their churches, in the presumed course of contributing stability to democracy in the nation.
Protestantism obviously lacks an authoritative view on social issues in a generation plagued by social ills. The division on social strategy runs as deep today as the theological cleavage in Protestantism, although the two factions do not correspond absolutely. More liberal churchmen, whose theology has not undergone a full conservative revision, today acknowledge the fallacy of socialism, and appear ready to combine the theological left with the economic right. In the welter of confusion, it is understandable that men with a concern for the Protestant witness to a culture near chaos should promote the idea of unity in social reconstruction. But to compensate for a disunity which grows out of a basic departure from biblical norms by a unity which is manmade is to jump out of confusion into caprice.
The Present Imperative
The great need today, as American Protestantism recoils from the invasion of its theology and social ethics by speculative evolutionary principles during the century of Liberalism, is to find its way back to the centrality of the Gospel, and to the recognition that hope for a new society is best mediated to any nation through the spiritual regeneration of its masses. In the long run, it is the decision made at this level which will answer the question of where America goes from here.
