Editor’s Note: This article by Joseph Sobran originally appeared in the June 27, 1980, issue of National Review. One of the forces we should not forget in this election year is one that got a lot of attention, thanks to Jimmy Carter, in 1976: evangelical (or “fundamentalist”) Protestantism. We were briefly conscious how large a portion of the nation this means. “If one identifies Fundamentalism with belief in biblical inerrancy,” writes Jesuit Thomas Clancy, “then 42 per cent of American adults must be so classified.”

Usually the media do an excellent job of screening such people out of the national consciousness. Hence they could be portrayed, in 1976, as a novelty or a fresh discovery, though they are the kind of people you may encounter all day long on days when the TV is left off. To watch TV, in fact, you would think them less numerous than blacks, or even philandering Texans; whereas in point of fact they are, if Father Clancy’s figure is correct, nearly as numerous as women.

Lately there has been a lot of talk, mostly by worried liberals, about “the electronic church.” TV preachers are nothing new: Billy Graham, Herbert W. Armstrong, Reverend Ike, and of course Bishop Sheen have long made profitable use of the medium. What worries the liberals, I suspect, is that the evangelicals are now learning to use the mass media to attain political goals.

Regularly cited as among the most sinister of the new TV evangelists is Jerry Falwell, whose conservatism makes no apologies. If he demanded the nationalization of giant oil companies, Falwell would be hailed as an activist who brought social conscience to religion. But what Falwell demands is very different. He demands the preservation of the family — against the attack of government and commercial forces. Hence he is deplored as a threat to the separation of church and state.

I have twice tuned in on this sinister being, who it transpires is about as menacing as the corner grocer. He is currently presenting a series under the title “America, You’re Too Young to Die,” for which he has purchased air time in every major TV market in the country. Beefy and genial, Falwell seems about to smile even when he makes his somberest warnings about decadence.

His method is not to harangue, but to marshall witnesses: in the course of an hour he may show you a documentary film, a U.S. senator, a Christian psychologist, and a kind of chorus line of devout parents with their children, all modestly dressed, perfectly groomed, courteously behaved. Soloists and choirs sing hymns. Falwell seems as much a religious Lawrence Welk as a preacher. What you see is the community he heads, the kind of people he represents, not just himself. It’s an epitome and maybe a portent.

When several hundred thousand evangelicals marched in Washington recently, the incident rated little attention in the news. When half as many antiwar activists did the same in 1969, it was treated as an event of major importance. The difference signifies more than media people’s predilections. It shows a failure of perception among those who profess to tell us what is happening in the nation. They are closely attuned to the sort of rootless young people who make a hobby of demonstrations and can as easily materialize for an anti-nuke rally as for a rock concert. They are purblind to the millions who go to church on Sunday, stay at home at night, and don’t raise their voices, or March on Washington, unless they mean it.

Falwell is a sign of the times. Traditionally these people may have been more or less conservative in their politics, but they have carefully kept politics and religion separate. They have, reluctantly, changed. Why?

My guess is that now, for the first time, they feel that politics itself has come to impinge on the sacred. Honest graft they can tolerate. War on morality, on the structure of the family itself, is another matter. They would leave politics alone if they felt it was leaving them alone; but they see that it isn’t. Falwell speaks firmly, calmly, with a glint of humor, about the current tendency of government to foster and accelerate bad trends: promiscuity, divorce, homosexuality, and abortion. Despite liberal propaganda on the subject, I have never heard a Catholic clergyman — not in my church, at any rate — speak as forthrightly against abortion as Falwell does. Though I agree with him, I found myself reacting with shock, as to indelicacy, when he discussed the matter in church. It was not his fault but my custom that caused this reaction. (Gay rights? “The Bible says God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”)

What is often overlooked is that the evangelicals are by no means in Jimmy Carter’s pocket. They don’t vote on the basis of sectarian loyalty. They vote for the man they perceive as likeliest to do the most good. Carter has allowed, and even helped, the bad trends to gain momentum under his Administration. He has appointed lots of Midge Constanzas and Bella Abzugs; but people of Evangelical convictions? They don’t demand personal “representation” in the usual sense. They do know that Jimmy Carter has done the things they hold sacred no favors.

All of which could redound hugely to the benefit of Ronald Reagan, who is too closely attuned to these people to run around quoting Bob Dylan and being interviewed by Playboy. Friendly though he is to everyone, Reagan has no visible inclination to ingratiate himself with liberal opinion. Carter got his mess of pottage in 1976, but he may find the deal didn’t include a second helping in 1980.