Breaking from the Baptist practice of maintaining a strict “wall of separation between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world,” the Reverend Jerry Falwell, a conservative Baptist minister and televangelist, organized a tour of public events promoted as “I Love America” rallies in 1976 in an effort to stimulate a more active political and social conscience among the Evangelical faithful and to draw a tighter connection between religious devotion and patriotic sentiments. The events raised Falwell’s profile within the fundamentalist Protestant community, drawing the attention of other like-minded conservative Christians, such as conservative Catholic activist Paul Weyrich, as well as some leaders within the Jewish community. Through their efforts, the evangelical Falwell and the Catholic Weyrich founded the “Moral Majority,” organized primarily to support political candidates and lobby legislatures on issues of particular concern for their faith communities. These issues often involved moral questions such as those raised by the abortion controversy, prayer in school, feminism (specifically, opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment), the state of popular culture, and the rejection of the privacy rights of gay Americans. Headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia (where Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church was located), the Moral Majority at its peak included over four million official members.
The Moral Majority supported the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in the Campaign of 1976 and the Campaign of 1980, and it quickly become a potent force in electoral politics, especially in the conservative South. Reagan welcomed the group’s support and worked closely with Moral Majority activist the Reverend Robert Billings, who would later serve in his administration. Thus, the Moral Majority quickly made political connections with the more conservative elements of the Republican Party, which led to internal party polarization and spurred some moderate and liberal Republicans to change their allegiances. (For example, the independent presidential campaign of moderate Republican John Anderson in the Campaign of 1980 was, in effect, a protest of the Moral Majority’s influence on the party.) Within the party, it was clear that moderate Republicans, such as George H. W. Bush, were uncomfortable with the doctrinaire attitude of the Moral Majority wing of the GOP. However, in the Campaign of 1988, the Moral Majority endorsed Bush for the presidency, even though televangelist Pat Robertson, who was also a candidate during that election, was far closer to its political and religious positions. While the Moral Majority clearly boosted Reagan’s 1980 campaign against the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, it is less clear that they helped Reagan in his reelection bid during the Campaign of 1984. Indeed, an anti-Moral Majority backlash might have helped Walter Mondale counter the group’s influence in that election, although this was hardly sufficient to counter Reagan’s economic success, and Mondale lost in a landslide. While the Moral Majority has had a strong influence on the composition of the Republican Party coalition, activists later grumbled that Reagan appeared ambivalent about many components of its agenda once he was elected.
By the Campaign of 1988, the Moral Majority began to lose the financial support of many of its core donors and, with this, much of the clout it had earned over the previous decade. Additionally, divisions among the leadership, exposed in part by the Moral Majority’s decision to support Bush over Robertson, weakened the organization and diffused its purpose. Finally, other leaders within the evangelical community became disenchanted with the Moral Majority. Notably, Bob Jones, a prominent figure among evangelical Christians in the South, became a vociferous opponent of the Moral Majority; at one point, Jones referred to the Moral Majority as the issue of Satan, primarily because he objected to its ecumenical approach (Jones considered any organization that worked with Catholics, Jews, and Mormons to be no less than an obvious tool of Satan). In 1989, the Moral Majority disbanded as a formal organization.
Falwell attempted to renew the Moral Majority in 2004, but the effort was unsuccessful, and he passed away three years later. While the Moral Majority enjoyed only a few years of real influence during the Reagan era, it remains a significant organization in modern American politics. The political activism of the Christian right initiated by Falwell and Weyrich, despite the brief lifespan of their organization, is largely responsible for sparking the politicization of the evangelical movement and also influencing the political commitment of other faith communities. To a large extent, the association of devout Christians with political conservatism, although inaccurate, is largely the result of the Moral Majority and its leadership.
See also Culture War; Values Voters
Fowler, Robert Booth, et al. Religion and Politics in America: Faith, Culture and Strategic Choices. Fourth ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010.
Johnson, Stephen D., and Joseph B. Tamney. “The Christian Right and the 1984 Presidential Election.” Review of Religious Research 27, no. 2 (1985): 124–33.
Putnam, Robert, and David E. Campbell. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
Wilcox, Clyde, and Carin Robinson. Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000.