Fred Clark tells you.
The founding myth of this new, stridently political faith says that this politicizing arose in reaction to the Roe v. Wade decision acknowledging the legal right to abortion. After "activist" judges "legislated" from the bench, evangelicals recoiled in horror and rose up, in Falwell's phrase, to "take back America."[snip]
In 1973, most evangelicals regarded opposition to abortion as a Catholic Thing -- and therefore vaguely suspect, as though it might lead to praying to Mary or something. But throughout the 1970s and into the '80s, that changed. The person most responsible for that change was Francis Schaeffer. He persuaded evangelicals to adopt this issue and to get so angry about it that it would come to replace even evangelism as their hallmark concern and their pre-eminent defining characteristic. The language, the rhetoric and arguments, the moral reasoning, political tactics and activist strategies of the anti-abortion movement over the last 30 years all originate with Francis Schaeffer.
Fred goes on to explain who Schaeffer was and why his son's appearance on MSNBC and in this Huffington Post essay is so interesting.
Fred explains the background behind the adoption of abortion as the defining issue for evangelicals in a way I've never seen before. Go read it.
Posted by Linkmeister at June 2, 2009 01:19 PM | TrackBack