John Dickerson has an interesting article over on Slate magazine regarding the future of Evangelical Christian loyalty in the GOP:

The greatest re-ordering in evangelical politics may come in the 2008 presidential
race. George Bush’s policies, personal conversion, and political acumen won him 78 percent of the evangelical vote in 2004. There is no current candidate who can match that, and none have a strategist like Karl Rove, who fixated on building the evangelical vote.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama urges the Democratic Party to “acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of the American people,” and compete for Evangelical voters last Wednesday. His remarks earn him the wrath of liberal bloggers on CorrenteWire:

This is pre-presidential run pandering, plain and simple. The last thing we need is more evangelical Christianity in the political process. Perhaps even more importantly, it’s ridiculous to think that evangelicals are ever going to vote for a Democratic candidate. Yo, Barak- look a little closer at the numbers. Who is the strongest, most reliable, most regular Republican voter group today? Evangelicals, you fool. If you think they’re going to vote for your black ass just because you make a speech or two about “protecting” religious expression, you’re way more stupid than I thought. You can give speeches like this till the cows come home; what you say to the press has absolutely no weight when compared to what they are told by their ministers. And you know what that is? Vote Republican.

Its vitriolic remarks found on that post that underscores the Democrats big problem for Evangelics: they leave us virtually no room in their Party.

When faced between liberal and liberal-lite or do-nothings, Evangelicals will likely stay home and not vote.

Unlike what our liberal friend from CorrenteWire says, Evangelicals are issue-voters, not Party loyalists. I say this despite the fact that I’m an Evangelical and an elected Republican Ward Leader. Evangelicals support the GOP in strong numbers for very big reasons. Namely the Democratic Party’s embrace of Roe vs. Wade, denying the personhood of the unborn, forcing the homosexual agenda on the American people, and showing hostility towards public expressions of faith from the Pledge on down to Valedictorian speeches and saying grace in school cafeterias. Worse of all: using the courts to rewrite the Constitution to force all of this on the American people, who would never have chosen it for themselves.

If the Democrats backed away from those issues named above, maybe they could become competitive among Evangelical voters.

I constantly weigh the issue of how I honor God with my politics. So far I’ve managed to conform my politics to the Bible while arguing for the same goals in secular terms. For instance, my religious interpretation of the Bible leads me to believe that the unborn are people, but there are secular arguments, libertarian and feminist even, that lead to the same conclusion.

But how far can Evangelical Christians compromise in our society? How does the Bible guide our views? There are some issues that we simply cannot compromise and Wayne Grudem discusses them in this sermon on October 17th, 2004 concerning the Presidential election. You can download the MP3 here.
Wayne Grudem is a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and author of Systematic Theology.

He first makes a distinction regarding means to an end in politics. Both parties claim to have similar goals, but different means to achieve those goals (as conservatives, we know that liberals claim to care but their policies actually hurt those they claim to help, but that’s a digression.) As Christians, we have an obligation to analyze those means on our own and make our own choice. This leaves open the issues of economics and government spending for Christians.

He then gives us an imperative on why we must engage society on social issues. Liberals and RINOs should take notes:

“Should Christians speak out at all about the large, moral issues facing our nation, issues of abortion or homosexual marriage or any of the other things we can think about? Should Christians say anything about those things or is that just politics and we should stay out altogether?

“I think Christians should speak out on these things. Why? Because if Christians do not speak out about the moral and ethical issues that face a nation, who will? If Christians do not speak out about moral and ethical issues, where will people learn about ethics? Where will our nation learn about matters of right and wrong? What will be the source of ethical norms? Well, if we don’t speak out, I guess people will learn about ethical norms from Hollywood movies and from feelings and conscience– those feelings and conscience may or may not be instructed by God’s principles. Or they’ll learn about ethical norms from friends at work, or from friends at the local bar that they talk to, or they’ll learn about ethical norms from going to professional counselors, or children will learn about ethical norms, I suppose, from their kindergarten teachers. …

“But that just throws the question right back again, where do kindergarten teachers learn about right and wrong? Or where do professional counselors learn about right and wrong? … Where do we learn about right and wrong? Where is the source for ethical norms?

“The simple fact is that if Christians don’t speak about what the Bible says about issues of right and wrong, there aren’t really many other good sources for finding out any transcendent sources of ethics; any source outside ourselves. So I think its right for us, both when speaking to Christians and even to non-Christians– I think its right for us to speak up and say ‘This is what the Bible says,’ or ‘This is what I understand the Bible to teach’ and then people can accept it or reject it as they wish, but at least we borne faithful witness.”

Liberals should think about Grudem’s words the next time they tell us to be quiet and just keep our views to ourselves or that our morality in our society is “constantly progressing.”

Grudem also discusses at length in his sermon various social issues:
purpose of government
abortion
homosexual marriage
embryonic stem-cell research
military force
Supreme Court power and judicial activism

WASHINGTON - US SENATE: US Senator Maria Cantwell (D) - 47%, insurance executive Mike McGavick (R) - 43%. (Strategic Vision-R).

H/T Politics1.com