“[T]he entire moral landscape has changed”
“Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., said in an interview. “It’s not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn’t get out. It did get out.
“It’s that the entire moral landscape has changed,” he said. “An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them.”…
The evangelical share of the population is both declining and graying, studies show. Large churches like the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God, which have provided an organizing base for the Christian right, are losing members.
“In the long run, this means that the Republican constituency is going to be shrinking on the religious end as well as the ethnic end,” said James L. Guth, a professor of political science at Furman University in Greenville, S.C.
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Turn out next time.
thebrokenrattle on November 10, 2012 at 9:48 PM
Well, returning to the practice of having three or four children might help end the shrinking of the constituency.
Marsili.us on November 10, 2012 at 9:49 PM
There is a mirror in their bathrooms that they can look in every morning so that they can see who is partially to blame.
Failure to act is to act for failure.
ProfShadow on November 10, 2012 at 9:49 PM
It’s also hard to convince people to stand behind a candidate’s moral foundation when he’s a weathervane.
Stoic Patriot on November 10, 2012 at 9:51 PM
It will be fun and games until the money runs out.
pedestrian on November 10, 2012 at 9:55 PM
Show up next time.
wargamer6 on November 10, 2012 at 9:58 PM
That’s the way it seems to me, too.
Marsili.us on November 10, 2012 at 9:58 PM
The entire moral landscape has changed!
The entire demographic landscape has changed!
The entire landscape of political theory has changed!
He won by 3 points. Maybe the liberal media needs a new landscaper.
HitNRun on November 10, 2012 at 9:59 PM
If the sleeper-cell snarkmeisters are any indication, he doesn’t know the half of it.
Give the man a silvah dollah.
MelonCollie on November 10, 2012 at 10:04 PM
TRUTH is still TRUTH.
Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies just because they’ve become fashionable. G.K. Chesterson
sanjuro on November 10, 2012 at 10:05 PM
Writing has been on the wall for gay marriage for a long time now. No surprise. A vanishingly small amount of people are passionate to stop same sex marriage. I have yet to hear a good argument to stop it myself, there is certainly no common agreed on response. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman” Ok. So? What does that have to do with the Federal Government? Small government, remember?
As for abortion, the evangelicals are much closer to the correct side of the debate than the lunatics at code pink, but they still need to watch for candidates that dont “get it”. It’s an extremely important and extremely personal and delicate subject. If you want to win the argument you need to take that into account and persuade. That is an area the government has a place in, the defense of human life.
Dash on November 10, 2012 at 10:08 PM
More navel-gazing while the main reason for the loss gets neglected — they rigged the election.
Yawn.
The Rogue Tomato on November 10, 2012 at 10:15 PM
Evangelicals came out in record numbers.
Bee on November 10, 2012 at 10:18 PM
He won by 3 points in a economy that should have been a landslide defeat, and would have been a landslide defeat 30 years ago – maybe even 20 years ago. Today, the worst economy since the great depression couldn’t stop a socialist from being re-elected.
In 1980, a guy like Obama wouldn’t even have been elected to the Senate. In 1990, he wouldn’t have won the nomination. In 2000, he wouldn’t have won the election. But by 2008, the electorate was ready for him. And by 2012, all that would have been seen as a bug in a guy like this, back in 1980, is now today seen as a feature.
keep the change on November 10, 2012 at 10:18 PM
They faked the moon landing. Rigging the election? Piece of cake!
lester on November 10, 2012 at 10:18 PM
You won’t make 50% of the nation voting for free stuff go away by whining about stolen elections.
MelonCollie on November 10, 2012 at 10:23 PM
A good 40% or more have been voting for that since FDR. All it takes to get to 50% is picking up an extra 10% from non-voters. Guess what just happened?
Count to 10 on November 10, 2012 at 10:33 PM
I disagree.
Most pastors and preachers are not preaching the bible anymore, instead they preach a lovey-dovey “Jesus”.
User-friendly churches abound today.
maynila on November 10, 2012 at 10:35 PM
Chicago Santa picked up 10% from promising free stuff.
MelonCollie on November 10, 2012 at 10:42 PM
Legal endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle, which “Gay Marriage” is a proxy for, will act to not only encourage more people to choose that lifestyle, but also encourage a whole host of other destructive behaviors by breaking down the social resistance to them. The legal recognition of marriage is vital for child rearing in a broad sense, something that doesn’t apply to arrangements that don’t have children as a result of sex (arrangements that have legacy children from previous arrangements don’t need those legal protections/responsibilities). Including sterile couples from legally recognized marriage would be cumbersome, and including them does not damage the fabric of society the way that enforcement of the homosexual lifestyle does.
Count to 10 on November 10, 2012 at 10:53 PM
No — he picked that 10% up by having his faithful go round up people that didn’t know the consequences of their vote (or maybe just fraudulently voted for them — either way). You could have changed their vote by getting to them first and giving them and alternate argument.
Count to 10 on November 10, 2012 at 10:58 PM
Yeah, the whole country is now socialist. Oh wait.. except for the 57,000,000 who voted against Obama. And then there is always the possibility that a few million voters who voted for Obama didn’t.
JellyToast on November 10, 2012 at 11:18 PM
Pathetic excuse. You KNOW what Obama’s “moral foundation” is like. That’s all you needed to know. Don’t turn out, don’t run your mouth.
cicerone on November 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM
They say this every time.
38 states have made same-sex marriage by legislation or popular vote. Three states, three of the most liberal states in the country, made it legal. This, to the MSM, represents a “shift of the moral landscape.”
Morons.
29Victor on November 11, 2012 at 1:40 AM
This is what happens when you mock Christianity in popular culture, suspend kids who pray at school, and fight tooth and nail to prevent a prayer at graduation. Libs knew it would take a generation or two, but they could make religion a thing of the past in young people.
goflyers on November 11, 2012 at 2:02 AM
The real problem is that marriage has been culturally redefined. It is no longer a sacred union of man and woman to create a family and to have and raise children. Under that marriage paradigm, gay marriage makes absolutely no sense. But nowadays, marriage is no longer a permanent institution, and children have absolutely nothing to do with marriage (lots of babies are born out of wedlock, and divorce and step-parents are rampant). Evangelicals need to focus their energy on promoting traditional family values to the heterosexual 98% of the country who desperately need it.
Outlander on November 11, 2012 at 2:04 AM
We are an ideological nation. We always have been. If you want to win the presidency you have to run on ideology.
Romney didn’t do that. He ran on being a “problem solver.” That his numbers went up when he picked Ryan came from the fact that Ryan wanted to “reapply our founding principles.” Romney never talked like that. The last 4 elections have been decided by who ran on ideology.
This stuff about the moral landscape changing is wishcasting. Romney wasn’t blown out, he was even despite getting worked on GOTV. Everything conservatives worried about with Romney during the primary ended up being true (though I’ll admit I thought he was a much better candidate than I expected.) His biggest perceived strength was organization, on Election Day it wasn’t there and he lost an election he should have won by 5.
It’s not that difficult to understand what happened. Luckily, it appears that the Children of Reagan are ready to start leading and we probably won’t be running someone who shies away from ideology for awhile (Rubio, Walker, Ryan, Jindal, etc). Conservatism is for everybody, but the only way to explain that is through ideology. Live and learn.
cpaulus on November 11, 2012 at 2:06 AM
I try to think back to the first Social-Conservatism-Is-Dead-article I ever read in the NYT and its just too long ago and there have been too many since then. I just cant remember. But Im quite sure that this one is as accurate as the rest of ‘em.
Valkyriepundit on November 11, 2012 at 4:04 AM
When the other guy is the devil, it shouldn’t be hard to convince people to do anything.
xblade on November 11, 2012 at 5:52 AM
The moral landscape hasn’t changed, it’s just that when people say things like, “When a person gets pregnant during a legitimate rape it’s actually a blessing from God,” people tend to tune those people out, and all those who associate with them. You’re actually pushing people to be pro choice at that point.
Want to win elections? Then concentrate on the fiscal issues and leave the social issues to the people, that is consistent with with the belief in limited government after all. No one likes to be preached at, least of all by a politician.
publius75 on November 11, 2012 at 7:00 AM
…because that worked so well for Romney.
It also requires that your own guy not be another devil.
And I know what Romney’s is like. Supported Roe as governor. First governor to ever implement gay marriage. Changes what he says as the audience changes. Romney and Obama are two peas in a pod.
Stoic Patriot on November 11, 2012 at 7:04 AM
Romney died a death of a thousand paper cuts, but the Mourdock and Akin quotes allowed the opposition to push their “War on Women” meme. My point is, a politician is never going to win the argument of absolutely no abortion even in the event of incest and rap. Never. Since Romney endorsed at least one of the two, he was guilty by association. Not the sole reason he lost, mind you, but it definitely hurt him more than anything else.
publius75 on November 11, 2012 at 7:12 AM
They basically handed the meme to them. It really had no legs until those idiotic statements.
Akin, Mourdock and Christie gave the left all the ammo needed to wound Romney at just the wrong time.
And of course there’s the odd voting tallies.
Speaking of odd…does anyone find it odd that there is no mention..not a word, about any of this?? Not fox news, not talk radio..nothing. Not even a mention out of curiosity.
If the reports are internet hoaxes that have been debunked, thats one thing, but if they are even somewhat based in fact, why the avoidance? The story would be huge. The willful ignoring of it is no different than the msm ignoring F&F, Benghazi, the green energy scams, the flushing of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars down a black hole etc.
It just seems odd to me.
Mimzey on November 11, 2012 at 7:29 AM
Nonsense. Akin and Mourdock’s damage was contained to themselves. He lost because of his nonsense on the 47%, his refusal to go after Benghazi, his numerous flip-flops, and his liberal record as governor of Massachusetts. The guy couldn’t even get as many votes as John McCain, and this is in a year when the economy was working towards the GOP’s advantage. Romney was a terrible candidate, through and through.
Stoic Patriot on November 11, 2012 at 7:34 AM
This. I am Episcopalian – can’t go anymore. Miss it, but can’t take it.
djl130 on November 11, 2012 at 7:47 AM
FIFY
Mimzey on November 11, 2012 at 7:47 AM
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury”. – Alexander Tyler 1787
kregg on November 11, 2012 at 8:02 AM
“Vanishingly small”? Well, whatever that means, look at how many states have rejected the oxymoron of “same sex marriage.”
Action at the federal level would prevent state A from having to capitulate if State B decide to change the definition of marriage.
“As for abortion['s]” being an “extremely personal.” I agree. That’s why I speak out for the ones for whom it is most personal, the ones who cannot speak for themselves.
As for being “delicate,” One dies, one is tortured. Not very delicate.
Abortion is murder. Let’s put it to a vote.
davidk on November 11, 2012 at 9:09 AM
Provide a credible candidate next time.
Stop assuming that the world shares your opinion that the opposition is the devil. The GOP keeps getting its ass handed to it year after year because it assumes that everybody sees the Democrats as an intolerable scourge and that the GOP therefore doesn’t have to talk to the voters about what people in office are supposed to be doing.
Aitch748 on November 11, 2012 at 9:47 AM
For those who think “voter fraud” is the conspiracy du jour:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-GGDvgjAOU/UJwrO5Jn6ZI/AAAAAAAADJg/6AcC6FG4kcM/s640/3423_10100667739157349_320421041_n.jpeg
davidk on November 11, 2012 at 9:59 AM
For those ready to stop the navel-gazing and the assigning of blame: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/
davidk on November 11, 2012 at 10:00 AM
See also: http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2012/11/10/america-at-the-brink/comment-page-1/#comment-2184446
davidk on November 11, 2012 at 10:01 AM
Save the “red”: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SzzcRXArjI8/UJ6tLsLIxrI/AAAAAAAADKI/F00rm1uqxhY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-11-10+at+12.37.48+PM.png
davidk on November 11, 2012 at 10:03 AM
Correction. See: http://obamavoterfraud.blogspot.com/
davidk on November 11, 2012 at 10:06 AM
The country is a pendulum and it has swung to far left. It will swing back, so long as the GOP stands on the principles of free markets and free, God fearing people. You can’t surrender on rule of law (amnesty), taxes, welfare spending (Obamacare), and national defense (the only role of federal government).
There is still a vast constituency for these principles, but the prerequisite is to get an actually nominee that embodies these from the start. The last two nominees didn’t and the base was more excited about their vp picks than they were about them! The GOP needs to nominate a Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan or an Allen West to win because they have complete base credibility. I would even accept Condi Rice or Rand Paul!
If the GOP insists on Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Thune or Tim Pawlenty, the party is finished.
milemarker2020 on November 11, 2012 at 10:42 AM