Populism and Internationalism, Evangelical Style: An Introduction to the Fall 2019 Issue

Abstract

The fall 2019 issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs is a special issue presenting an interdisciplinary collection of research articles examining interrelationships between populism and internationalism among American evangelicals. The issue features highly distinguished contributors presenting original data analyses and case studies exploring two sharply contrasting narratives of contemporary evangelical politics. One pictures evangelicals as right-wing anti-globalist populists, while the other pictures them as humanitarian internationalists with increasingly cosmopolitan perspectives.

Keywords:

• evangelical
• populism
• nationalism
• internationalism
• nativism
• anti-elitism
• religion

Two starkly different narratives are common today regarding the role of white evangelical Protestants in American global engagement and foreign policy. The first narrative is that evangelicals are strident supporters of anti-globalist populism. The 2016 election of Donald Trump, widely described as a right-wing populist, has greatly strengthened this narrative. His unexpected victory was due in no small part to the support of some 80 percent of white voters who self-identified as evangelical (Alberta 2017).¹

The most common characteristic of populism is its mobilization of intensely felt grievances and distrust of elites, and a corresponding celebration of the “common man” or “the people.” Populist entrepreneurs often rail against “the establishment”—elites who are seen as rigging the system in their favor and looking down their noses on the little people while doing it. It is in this broad sense of populism as mass anti-elitism that both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders could be described as “populists.”

But in addition to this elite-focused dimension to populist discontent, there is also often a cultural dimension, in which hostility, suspicion, and scapegoating are focused on certain cultural out-groups (Brubaker 2017). Such groups might actually have a similar, non-elite socioeconomic status as the populist’s own cultural in-group, but they are nevertheless seen as culturally “other.” This “othering” typically entails overlapping historical, ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, moral, and lifestyle factors. And although nationalism is certainly not coterminous with populism, strident forms of ethnic, racial, and/or religious nationalism are frequently enmeshed in cultural populism.

Confounding traditional analysis on the basis of material interest, these groups often align and conform on the basis of shared signals, virtues, and cultural postures, meaning those swept up in movement identities may not often personally benefit, in a material way, from group positions or behaviors. This gets even more confusing when applied to rifts in evangelicalism, where traditionally doctrinal or theological positions mark boundaries between groups. While these markers have not disappeared, they are augmented and sometimes supplanted by other cultural identity markers.

For right-wing populists the horizontal cultural dimension and the vertical anti-elitist dimensions reinforce each other in an especially potent way when elites are seen as biased in favor of out-groups. In contemporary American politics no issue better illustrates this convergence of right-wing populist grievances than immigration, particularly of Hispanics and Muslims. Right-wing populists see open policies toward immigrants (documented and undocumented) as serving the economic interests of the globalist elite and undermining the national culture—a culture in which white Protestants once enjoyed near-hegemonic status (Melkonian and Kellstedt 2019). Trump’s reputation as a “populist” derives largely from his hostility to non-white, non-Christian immigrants.

Of course, right-wing populism has been a part of American society and politics since long before Trumpism arrived. “America first” nationalism and nativism fit with a long heritage of right-wing populist politics in the United States (Oliver and Rahn 2016), with prominent antecedents such as the Know Nothing party of the 1850s. Right-wing populism has typically exhibited a range of closely related tendencies (see Barker, Hurwitz, and Nelson 2008; Hofstadter 1965; Judis 2005; Kidd 2009; Ruotsila 2008; Weber 1992; Worthen 2013). Examples include

• anti-intellectualism and attraction to charismatic authority and demagoguery

• a pervasive sense that rural and traditional religious values are ridiculed and threatened by cosmopolitan liberalism

• sympathy if not outright advocacy for white Protestant nationalism

• staunch belief in a defensive version of American exceptionalism (Hoover 2014)

• opposition to multilateralism

• a penchant for conspiracy theories (especially Anti-Semitic ones)

• apocalyptic embrace of Christian Zionism, and

• a dualistic moralism about world affairs that envisions a monolithic ideological enemy bent on infiltrating America (during the Cold War this foe was Communism; since then, Islamism has largely replaced it in right-wing populist thought)

In the United States virtually all of these tendencies have historical and current associations with white evangelical Protestantism. And virtually all of them point away from mainstream engagement with global affairs and global cosmopolitanism. Hence the Trump era has revitalized a longstanding narrative of evangelical politics being dominated by a parochial-minded populist disposition.

However, a second, contrasting narrative has also been in play for at least the last two decades, which asserts a growing trend toward evangelical internationalism. On this view, many evangelical leaders and institutions are becoming “new internationalists”—that is, increasingly responsible and sophisticated contributors to mainstream global issues, and increasingly comfortable among cosmopolitan elites (see Amstutz 2013; Calo 2012; den Dulk 2006, 2007; Guth 2016; Hoover 2010, 2009; King 2019; Lindsay 2007; Mead 2006; Steensland and Goff 2014; Weyl 2009; Wuthnow and Lewis 2008). For instance, New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof once memorably quipped that evangelicals such as mega-church pastor Rick Warren—who is known for largely eschewing partisan politics and promoting global humanitarianism—are “evangelicals a liberal can love” (Kristof 2002, 2008).

Tendencies commonly seen as being part of the evangelical-internationalist persuasion include

• support for U.S. foreign policy initiatives promoting democracy and human rights abroad

• support for generous international humanitarian aid and investment in economic development

• support for global health interventions including efforts to combat HIV/AIDS

• a preference for multilateral rather unilateral approaches

• support for national and international efforts to address global environmental problems

• respect for academic and professional expertise on foreign cultures and geopolitics

• a preference for quiet diplomacy over belligerent rhetoric and demonstrations of power

• openness to refugees and diverse immigration, and

• support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

An issue that has long attracted the active involvement of evangelical internationalists (amongst others) is U.S. international religious freedom policy (Hertzke 2004). In the mid-1990s evangelicals were key backers of an unusually multi-faith, non-partisan movement to pass legislation elevating the promotion of international religious freedom to a much higher priority in U.S. foreign policy. Politically moderate evangelical leaders have played prominent leadership roles in this policy area. For example, after serving as President of the large evangelical relief & development organization World Vision, Robert Seiple served as the first-ever US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom during the Bill Clinton administration.

Moreover, as some scholars of evangelical history and of populism have noted, there have always been forms of evangelical politics and social engagement that do not conform precisely to a right-wing stereotype (see Bissett 1999; Creech 2006; Hertzke 1993; Joustra 2013, 2015; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2012). Consider the example of one of the most important evangelical leaders of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, William Jennings Bryan (Noll 1994). Bryan’s economic populism was in many ways aligned with a progressive political ethos. There were likewise cases of evangelical populism aligning with agrarian socialism. Other commonly cited examples include the leadership of certain evangelical activists in the abolitionist movement and in numerous humanitarian causes with international dimensions (Curtis 2018).

Which narrative, then, is closer to the truth of the matter? Are evangelicals right-wing, anti-globalist populists, or are they humanitarian internationalists? Are there important sectors of evangelicalism that fit neither of these narratives? Are there ways in which some evangelicals combine certain characteristics of both populism and internationalism? If evangelicalism is internally divided, what are the relative proportions and resources of the different camps, and what are the key trend lines? Are the patterns we observe in American evangelicalism unique to the U.S. case or are there similarities across global evangelicalism? And what are the implications—both for evangelicalism as a religious tradition and for the U.S. role in the world?

This special issue of The Review of Faith & International Affairs is designed to help address these questions. It brings together an interdisciplinary array of experts presenting fine-grained original research on the past and present forms of evangelical interaction with international issues.

Our first article is by Jessica Joustra, who addresses a perennial—and foundational—question: “What is an Evangelical?” She argues that, even though “evangelical” has become an increasingly contested label, a coherent definition of evangelicalism can still be derived from the shared history of evangelicals and their common theological professions. However, this inherent breadth of the evangelical tradition also means that, from its origins to today, evangelicalism has always exhibited “differing postures towards political engagement, including towards populism and internationalism.”

Our second article by James Guth asks two similarly foundational questions. First, what are the key characteristics of “populism”? And second, do white evangelicals in America today actually hold these “populist” views? Guth reviews the literature on populism and finds a wide range of possible meanings, most related to cultural resentment and/or economic stress. He then presents a detailed analysis of public opinion data from the 2016 American National Election Study, which demonstrates that, although white evangelicals are not a monolith, they do tend to exhibit higher levels of agreement with “populist” traits than do other ethnoreligious groups.

Our next article by Paul Rowe, “The Global—and Globalist—Roots of Evangelical Action,” puts the past and present politics of evangelicalism in international comparative perspective. Rowe provides an overview of evangelical politics across East Asia, Africa, Latin America, South Asia, North America, and Australia. He shows that, while many evangelicals in the US currently exhibit support for anti-internationalist populism, in other countries they are often more comfortable with internationalist causes, which is consistent with an impulse toward global engagement that has long been evident in the evangelical movement.

In the fourth article, “Populism, Evangelicalism, and the Polarized Politics of Immigration,” Ruth Melkonian-Hoover and Lyman Kellstedt compare the immigration views of the evangelical laity with those of evangelical leadership (i.e. institutions and leaders at the denominational, parachurch, and congregational level). Through an extensive analysis of multiple surveys, they show (similar to Guth) that hardline views on immigration are indeed more prevalent among white evangelicals. However their study of evangelical elites finds a deep and growing disagreement with the white evangelical masses—namely, many white evangelical leaders are now calling for more compassionate and balanced approaches to immigration policy, but a majority of rank-and-file white evangelicals are either not hearing or not heeding these calls.

In his contribution, “A Just and Durable Peace?”, Robert Joustra offers a historical case study of the late and post-war period (1942–1949). He argues that at this point in the history of American Protestantism the divide between what could count as “evangelical” vs. “mainline” was not nearly so stark and mutually exclusive as it may seem today. As such, even though there was a strong stream of anti-globalism within fundamentalist Protestantism in that era, the ideas and influence of neo-orthodox figures like Reinhold Niebuhr should not be read out of evangelical history, nor should those evangelicals within groups like the Federal Council of Churches that supported the very foundation of key international institutions such as the United Nations.

Melissa Borja and Jacob Gibson also take a historical case study approach in their contribution, “Internationalism with Evangelical Characteristics: The Case of Evangelical Responses to Southeast Asian Refugees.” Based on their analysis of archival and oral history evidence from the 1970s and 1980s, they argue that white evangelicals displayed both populist and internationalist tendencies in their participation in resettlement programs for Southeast Asian refugees. A sense of religious peoplehood and evangelistic motivations shaped this expression of global humanitarian work.

The following article by David Swartz takes up the case of how “Rescue Sells” in the context of evangelical efforts to combat sex trafficking in Southeast Asia. His study reveals growing tensions between, on the one hand, cosmopolitan understandings among evangelical staff running in-country programs, and on the other hand continuing “populist” style fundraising appeals featuring moralistic framing and triumphalist rhetoric of heroic Christians “recuing” sex workers.

In our final article in this special issue, Melani McAlister examines “Evangelical Populist Internationalism and the Politics of Persecution.” She argues that, even though American evangelical activism on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad does represent a kind of internationalism, some important components of the movement mobilize a common populist trope of an in-group facing attack from outside. Rather than organizing around religious freedom broadly, they construct a narrative of American Christians as part of a victimized and marginalized group.

This special issue is part of a larger project titled “Reexamining Evangelical Populism and Evangelical Internationalism,” generously supported with funding from the Initiative Grants Program of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), and with funding and administrative support from the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College. Other components of the project to date include a series of essays in Public Justice Review (den Dulk 2019), and two panels of contributing scholars at the Henry Symposium on Religion and Public Life, Calvin College, April 25-27, 2019. Kevin den Dulk (Calvin College), Robert Joustra (Redeemer University College), and I serve as co-directors of the project and co-editors of this special issue.

The project aims to help fill a gap in existing scholarship on the interrelationships between evangelicalism, populism, and internationalism. The relative dearth of such research has enabled simplistic paradigms and misleading characterizations to go unchallenged, whether within evangelical communities, academia, or in public discourse more broadly. A narrative of evangelicals as a right-wing populist monolith easily feeds into a reductionist “clash of civilizations” paradigm in which evangelicals face off against Muslims worldwide (Hoover 2004). On the other hand, overestimation of a trend toward “new internationalism” (Galli 2006) can feed naïve expectations among internationalist elites. It is our hope that the timely research commissioned for this project will help advance a more nuanced discussion of the past, present, and possible futures of evangelical engagement in international affairs.

Additional information

Funding

This special issue was supported in part with funding from the Initiative Grants Program of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and from the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics, Calvin College.

Notes on contributors

Dennis R. Hoover

Dennis R. Hoover is Editor of The Review of Faith & International Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement. His books include Modern Papal Diplomacy and Social Teaching in World Affairs, co-edited with Mariano Barbato and Robert Joustra (Routledge 2019) and Religion and American Exceptionalism (Routledge 2014).

Notes

1. Moreover, in recent years populism has also emerged as a central political theme in numerous contexts abroad (the UK, Hungary, Brazil, and Russia, to name a few).