No major change in policy. The big change for me was in tactics and what approach I think socons should take to politics.
Would be curious if you could elaborate on this.
Sure. To start, I was a fairly standard religious right tactician. I.e. Use the power of the religious and non-SJW nones disgusted at liberal overreach to achieve legislative victory. That seems way too optimistic in hindsight.
If we compare the culture war to a real war, the religious right in the 1980's and 90's was like an overmatched country whose generals were able win some unexpected victories. In response, the leadership thought they were going to take the enemy's capital, and completely ignored our inferior numbers and logistics.
The older generation of religious right leaders has spent a lot of time and money electing Republican politicians and has achieved some surprising legislative victories, but they've confused this for cultural power. Consequently you get leaders acting as if victory is just over the next hill while our youth retention rate declines and institutions stagnate. In short, we have spent too much election orthodox Christian pols and not enough discipling new orthodox Christians.
Think of all the money that has been spent on socially conservative think tanks, election campaigns, legislative efforts etc. I posit that the religious right, especially the Evangelical part of it, would be in far better shape today if those funds had been spent on Christian schools, hospitals, evangelism and outreach.
Now, this doesn't mean I embrace the political quietism that many millennial socons talk up. That is a foolish overreaction to the excesses of the past. It's not like we're going to be actively peresecuted, but orthodox Christianity is experiencing a backlash and it is getting harder to be a Christian in certain cases. Acting as if that won't be a problem if we're winsome and abstain from divisive politics strikes me as naive.
In short, the old religious right was broad in scope, national in character, and attacking by nature, based on the false assumption that it had cultural hegemony. I think we need to get focused, local and defending. What does that mean in practical terms? Political engagement should mostly be limited to:
1) Defending the right to fully practice our faith against narrow secular definitions of freedom of religion
2) Shoring up our cultural institutions
3) Issues of fundamental justice where we have some hope of making a difference.
I'm deliberately being a bit vague here. It might be school vouchers in one state, letting a mosque get built in another etc. Practice will vary from place to place. Mainly I am trying to get away from the annoying trend of our leaders either shoehorning the Bible into a partisan position or relitigating issues that we've clearly lost. There has been some change in attitude as a newer generation of leaders takes over, but its not happening fast enough and that worries me.
Poll
