Cal Thomas on the Future of the Religious Right

^{Related: Understanding the Religious Right}

In a Townhall.com column, conservative author Cal Thomas--long considered a powerful voice in the Religious Right--is calling for a change of tactics:

Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed ...

I opt for trying something else ...

If results are what conservative Evangelicals want, they already have a model. It is contained in the life and commands of Jesus of Nazareth. Suppose millions of conservative Evangelicals engaged in an old and proven type of radical behavior. Suppose they followed the admonition of Jesus to "love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and care for widows and orphans," not as ends, as so many liberals do by using government, but as a means of demonstrating God's love for the whole person in order that people might seek Him?

Christian groups and individuals already do considerable work in this area, but this civil libertarian wouldn't mind at all if the mobilizing power of the Religious Right were put into these sorts of efforts instead of divisive legislative proposals. Everyone has a First Amendment right to try to change the culture around them. But I think Thomas underestimates the role that anger has played in the Religious Right's power to mobilize. The Religious Right has more-or-less thrived for 30 years on Howard Beale's refrain from Network--"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." That kind of sentiment is hard to reconcile with the words of Jesus Christ.