Uncertain Future: The National Association of Evangelicals After Ted Haggard

Throughout its history, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has sought public attention for America’s evangelical Protestant community. Once neglected and marginalized, that community now stands as perhaps the nation’s largest religious bloc. Since the association’s founding in 1942, evangelicals have grown not only in numbers but also in influence and recognition. The evangelical presence in U.S. public life is quite controversial, but it is undeniable.

Accordingly, the NAE has raised its public profile—especially through its Office of Governmental Affairs in Washington, DC. Yet the organization remains small, with eight employees and a $686,000 annual budget. Many of the NAE’s claimed 30 million constituents (themselves less than half of the U.S. evangelical population) were probably unaware of the organization’s existence before the first week of last November.

That week the association’s name was splashed across newspapers and national newscasts. But the attention was not welcome. What garnered such coverage was the revelation that the NAE president—the Rev. Ted Haggard, pastor of an evangelical megachurch in Colorado Springs—had been caught in a relationship with a male prostitute. The news shocked the NAE and embarrassed the evangelical community, giving apparent confirmation to those already inclined to stereotype evangelicals as arrogant hypocrites.

Former NAE President Ted Haggard was caught in a relationship with a male prostitute last fall, shocking the NAE and embarrassing the evangelical community. (Photo courtesy NAE.)

This stereotype fed much of the press coverage, with headlines blaring that an “anti-gay evangelical preacher” had been “outed.” Ironically, opposition to homosexuality had not been a major NAE theme under Haggard’s leadership. The Colorado Springs pastor was indeed opposed to same-sex marriage and expansive definitions of “gay rights”; however, he had tried hard to “broaden the evangelical agenda” to include other concerns such as defending human rights abroad, fighting poverty, combating HIV/AIDS, and caring for the environment.

Yet the message had not registered sufficiently. At their darkest hour, Haggard, the NAE, and the evangelical community were still type-cast as “anti-gay.” The damage may have been limited by the prompt, firm, and dignified manner in which the NAE president was removed from his positions and sent off to seek repentance and restoration. But his departure, and the sudden need to find new NAE leadership, brought to the fore the long-term questions about the association’s identity and purpose.

What Does ‘Evangelical’ Mean?
What is the distinctive image of evangelicalism that the NAE seeks to project? What is the unique focus of its work, distinguishing the NAE from other evangelical organizations? Is the focus on theology?  Is it on evangelism? Is it on cooperative service to society? Is it on politics? If there is an emphasis on politics, are the NAE’s politics to be conservative, moderate, or liberal? Will the association be informally aligned with the Republicans or with the Democrats?  Or will it try to play both sides of the aisle?

These questions challenge not only the NAE, but also the broader evangelical community for which it attempts to speak. At this point in history, what does it mean to be an evangelical in America? Efforts to craft a definition have proven notoriously difficult.

If evangelical unity is sought in theology, what is the common theology? Evangelicals range from starchy Calvinists to fiery Pentecostals. The NAE has a short “Statement of Faith.” But its articles—e.g., the deity of Christ, his atonement for sin, his bodily resurrection and return—are not uniquely evangelical. These doctrines would be affirmed by all orthodox Christians.

Equally futile is the attempt to nail down evangelical identity on the basis of characteristic practices. Any that might be suggested—for example, enthusiastic worship, evangelistic “altar calls,” personal testimonies of “born-again” experiences, or abstinence from “worldly” entertainments—turns out not to be shared by a significant section of the evangelical community. In the end, evangelicalism seems to be more a matter of attitude. Anyone who wants the label “evangelical” can claim it.

The NAE founders claimed that name for the sake of a perceived common cause. But it was always easier to say what the NAE was not rather than what it was. On the one hand, the NAE was not the National Council of Churches. It would have no truck with the watered-down liberal theology that prevailed in many NCC circles, and it was deeply suspicious of the NCC’s utopian “Social Gospel” ambitions. Established consciously as an alternative to the NCC, the NAE had a statement of faith that deliberately excluded NCC liberals. Denominations affiliated with the NCC were barred from membership in the NAE.

On the other hand, NAE evangelicals distinguished themselves from the separatist, fratricidal fundamentalists. One of the association’s earliest endeavors was to secure access to the airwaves for reputable Christian broadcasters. (This endeavor later led to the establishment of the powerful National Religious Broadcasters.) In doing so, the NAE was careful to condemn “charlatan” evangelists who preached hatred.

Thus the NAE has stood in a delicate equipoise, well captured in the association’s motto: “Cooperation without Compromise.” Unlike the earlier fundamentalists, the NAE has sought cooperation in Christian ministry. Unlike the NCC, it has rejected theological compromise.

Regarding politics, too, the NAE has attempted to keep a balance. Carl F.H. Henry (later a founding member of the IRD board) exercised great influence in the NAE’s early years with his call for speaking biblical, “redemptive,” and “supernaturalistic” truth to “such admitted social evils as aggressive warfare, racial hatred and intolerance, the liquor traffic, and exploitation of labor or management” (The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1947), 3).

Yet NAE leaders also expressed reservations about excessive entanglements in partisan politics. A 1968 NAE resolution warned against the “double risk” that the Christian “who devotes his energies to justice, equality and peace may fail to keep uppermost in his testimony that Christ came to seek and to save those who were lost. And, in his desire to be relevant in his testimony, he may lend support to objectives that seem to advance the cause of justice, equality and peace by secular standards, but which do not accord with the will of God.”

The Balance is Tilted
But these balances seem to have become tilted in recent years. As the “Religious Right” has come to prominence and the NCC has declined, NAE leaders have seemed more determined to differentiate themselves from the former than the latter. (The contemporary “Religious Right” is often perceived as an outgrowth of fundamentalism, even though it has largely dropped the fundamentalist faults of theological separatism and political quietism that the early NAE had criticized. Moreover, many supporters of “Religious Right” groups come from the NAE’s own claimed constituency.)

At the same time, the association has been drawn ever deeper into political advocacy. This process is described, approvingly, in “A History of the Public Policy Resolutions of the National Association of Evangelicals,” by Richard Cizik, the current NAE Vice President for Governmental Affairs. (Cizik’s essay appears in Ronald J. Sider and Diane Knippers, eds., Toward an Evangelical Public Policy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 35-63.)

According to Cizik, the early NAE “largely steered clear of domestic political action.” Its conventions expressed general sentiments on a few big issues—for example, the perceived dangers of communist subversion and state funding of Roman Catholic schools—and “[t]here was occasional testimony before congressional committees and advocacy to the State Department on overseas concerns.” But the association was not trying to be a big player in the Washington lobbying scene.

In the late 1950s, as Cizik tells it, the NAE began “moving into the mainstream.” Twenty years later, this process yielded a decision that the association “would have to expand its Washington presence.” Cizik boasts of the political influence that the NAE Washington office (including himself) gained during the 1980s: “The NAE staff members were increasingly consulted about [Reagan] administration appointments and policy, and they seized the opportunity to influence government.” He admits, with apparent ambivalence, that by 1992 “it had been electoral politics, not evangelism, that had become the [evangelical] movement’s calling card.”

Cizik sees a new boost in NAE’s political influence after his own accession as Washington office director in 1997. Citing a 2002 New York Times column, he remarks that “the NAE and other groups had already been influential in changing government policy for at least five years.” The NAE official concludes that “the organization serves a critical need, providing order and stability for a diverse and competitive movement while projecting a respected voice for otherwise silent multitudes from coast to coast.”

On many issues—for example, seeking to restrict alcohol advertising, interceding for persecuted Christians overseas, and defending the right of evangelical military chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus—the NAE undoubtedly represents its evangelical constituency. There usually are NAE board resolutions authorizing the general positions taken, although not necessarily endorsing the specific legislation for which the NAE Washington office is lobbying.

The board resolutions refer to Scripture (“the only infallible, authoritative Word of God,” according to the NAE Statement of Faith) as the ground for evangelical concern about these issues. But they do not attempt to derive every NAE political position directly from the biblical text. Thus the association has a long history of espousing some positions that are not, strictly speaking, the Word of God. Instead those positions represent the political judgment of the NAE board and staff.

Delving into Divisive Issues
For the NAE, as for every political group, the trickiest issues are those where the constituency is divided. In some such cases, the association wisely refrained from taking sides. For example, Cizik recounts, “While most of the members of the association opposed Carter’s Panama Canal Treaty [in 1977], missionaries and other Latin American ministry heads successfully persuaded NAE leaders against taking a stand.” Likewise, regarding the 2003 U.S. intervention in Iraq, “The organization’s board of directors declined to take a position on the Iraq conflict, citing concern for missionaries and indigenous Christians overseas.”

But this reticence has not been not consistent. In 1990-1991 NAE officials—without explicit board authorization—had “expressed their support for President Bush’s leadership in assembling a coalition of nations to forcibly remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait,” according to Cizik. In the late 1990s, when “debates on Capitol Hill over most-favored-nation status for China … divide[d] the evangelical community,” NAE staff again took a stand without explicit board authorization. Cizik reports that “NAE testimony made the claim that permanent normal-trade-relations (PNTR) would over time best serve the cause of religious freedom.”

This same pattern of unauthorized advocacy on divisive issues has recurred more recently. Cizik has declared himself “called out” to lead a campaign on environmental issues, especially global warming. Even though the NAE Board of Directors has adopted no position on the latter issue, and even though the Executive Committee instructed staff to “stand by and not exceed in any fashion our approved and adopted statements concerning the environment,” Cizik has appeared in numerous media outlets proclaiming that “climate change is real and induced and calls for action.” The NAE official has vowed to “squeeze the Republicans until they see the light” and support new government regulations to counter global warming. (See Steve Rempe, “Evangelical Official Raises Global Warming Concerns,” Faith & Freedom, Summer 2006. See also Mark Tooley “Getting Green Religion,” The American Spectator, January 25, 2007. )

Cizik has also used his NAE title in endorsing a petition against torture that alleges that the practice “is condemned in word but allowed in deed” by the Bush administration. Materials supporting the petition accuse U.S. military and intelligence agencies of “sponsoring” torture as a systematic policy. They make scant mention of torture being practiced by any country other than the United States.

Similarly, Cizik has backed the Evangelicals for Darfur petition organized by the “progressive Christian” Sojourners group. That petition targets President Bush, as if he were the main obstacle blocking humanitarian intervention to stop the Darfur genocide. “Without you, Mr. President, Darfur doesn’t have a prayer,” the petition begs. It says nothing about the Sudanese government forces that are actually carrying out the genocide.

All of these controversial political judgments go well beyond any plain scriptural teaching. None of them has been authorized by the NAE board. None of them would have consensus support in the evangelical community. All of them have the effect of separating the NAE politically from President Bush and the Republican Party.

From ‘Insiders’ to Triangulators
The fact is that, in recent decades, the NAE’s claimed constituency has trended strongly Republican. Exit polls from the 2006 congressional elections showed that, even in a bad year for Republicans, 72 percent of self-identified evangelicals voted for GOP candidates. Whether or not that partisan loyalty is justified, it is the reality among the NAE’s claimed constituency.

In earlier years, NAE officials seemed comfortable as “political insiders” (Cizik’s phrase) in Republican circles. Cizik’s historical essay recalls with pride how Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush addressed NAE conventions. The association’s staff was even granted a hand in shaping Reagan’s speeches, Cizik says.

Yet some uneasiness arose regarding this cozy relationship. “We are in danger of becoming, if not already identified as, the political arm of one party, a very dangerous position to be in,” warned then NAE President Don Argue in 1993. The NAE response to this danger has not been to withdraw from partisan politics, but rather to play some compensatory footsie with the Democrats. Cizik recounts how the association benefited from President Clinton’s strategy of “triangulation.” The result, according to Cizik, was that “there was always an open door for the NAE staff members at the [Clinton] White House.” Nevertheless, he admits that “the annual resolutions [of the NAE board] usually criticized Clinton administration policies.”

The NAE’s relationship with George W. Bush started off well. “President Bush’s language and programs resonated with the NAE and evangelicals generally,” Cizik says. He describes how association staff worked with the Bush White House to advance its “faith-based initiative.”

But somewhere along the line, for reasons still unclear, the relationship must have soured. Not only has Cizik turned against the administration on issues ranging from global warming to torture allegations, but his public remarks have repeatedly evinced a personal animus against the Bush White House.

The most remarkable illustration occurred in February 2006, when Bush domestic policy adviser Claude Allen resigned for unspecified reasons. The Washington Times (Feb. 17, 2006) quoted the NAE’s Cizik speculating that the resignation resulted from Allen standing up for his evangelical faith. “They [the Bush White House] don’t take kindly to someone serving too strongly the evangelical cause,” Cizik told the Times. “The people in the White House want someone who will salute, no matter what. If you are an evangelical, you get special scrutiny. They know evangelicals are obedient to a higher principle.” It later came out that Allen resigned because he had been arrested for shoplifting.

Meanwhile, the “triangulation” strategy has reappeared. In the May 29, 2006, issue of The New Republic, reporter Amy Sullivan discussed a screening of the documentary The Great Warming (featuring Cizik) at Messiah College in April 2006. The follow-up panel discussion, in which Cizik participated alongside Democratic Senate candidate Bob Casey, turned into a non-stop assault on the environmental record of incumbent Republican Senator Rick Santorum. (Santorum was invited to the event but did not attend.) Sullivan, after an interview with Cizik, discerned a partisan slant:

… the NAE has made the Keystone State the testing ground for a new strategy—one that favors not the hot-button issues of abortion and gay marriage, which traditionally have helped Republican candidates, but other causes on the evangelical agenda that more closely track with Democratic positions. “There’s going to be a lot of political reconsideration of this in the coming year,” Cizik told me. “The old faultlines are no more.”

It is noteworthy that Cizik’s historical essay twice uses the same dismissive phrase, “hot-button,” to refer to evangelical concerns involving unborn children and the defense of marriage.

Is It All about Politics?
In the public perception, it is clear that the NAE is mostly about politics these days. A review of the NAE websites (www.nae.net and the associated www.revision.org) shows that the vast majority of the material posted is about political issues. And the issue that gets more attention than any other is the environment—especially global warming.

The results from a Nexis search for “National Association of Evangelicals” over the past year are enlightening. Of 987 NAE media mentions that the search yielded, 516 related principally to the Haggard scandal. Among the other 471 mentions, 337 (or 72 percent) had politics as their main topic.

By far the leading issue linked to the NAE was the environment and global warming, with 37 percent of the non-Haggard-scandal mentions. General political commentary, usually relating to how evangelicals would vote and the parties and ideologies with which they aligned themselves, received 13 percent of the mentions. Other specific issues trailed far behind: immigration (5 percent), Sudan/Darfur (3 percent), upholding free exercise of religion in the U.S. military and elsewhere (3 percent), and the Mideast (2 percent).

If this Nexis search is any indication, the NAE certainly has not been caught up in the “hot button” culture wars issues. Only three percent of the NAE media mentions related to its opposition to same-sex marriage, and less than one percent involved opposition to abortion.

Commentary on the place of evangelicals in U.S. society and cultural, and their portrayal in the arts, occupied 13 percent of the NAE mentions. Ten percent dealt with the (embarrassing) appearance of Ted Haggard in the Alexandra Pelosi documentary film Friends of God.

Only three percent of the NAE mentions concerned efforts toward Christian unity with non-evangelicals. One percent related to interfaith dialogue with non-Christian religions. Less than one percent involved evangelism, in the sense of inviting non-Christians to place their faith in Jesus Christ.

All this evidence raises the question of what the NAE has become. Is it possible that the association has come to resemble its old nemesis, the National Council of Churches? Despite manifest theological differences, there are some striking analogies.

Both organizations were established in the mid-20th century with a mission of Christian unity. Yet both were increasingly drawn into political advocacy. Both have spun off some of their most popular programs—e.g., the NCC’s Church World Service relief arm and the NAE’s World Relief are now autonomous from their institutional parents—and most of what’s left is politics.

Both organizations have large boards that do not exercise much oversight over the staff. Consequently, staff members feel free to take positions based on their own political judgment. There is often no direct scriptural mandate for these positions, and in many cases there is no explicit board authorization. Frequently, there has not been an open, balanced discussion among the member denominations about the most difficult issues.

Many of those denominations have no stated position on these issues; they know their constituency is divided. Yet both organizations go ahead with political advocacy that risks the relationship with that constituency. Many of those claimed constituents are not aware of the organizations’ political activities. And, if they were aware, they might not approve of some activities.

By the end of the 20th century, both the NCC and NAE faced financial crises. Both have survived, but they are not thriving. The relevance of both organizations to the enterprise of Christian unity is called into question.

To be sure, the NAE is nowhere near as far down the road as the NCC in alienating its own constituents and rendering itself ecumenically counter-productive. There is a much better chance that the NAE can be turned back toward its mission to “extend the kingdom of God …, demonstrating the unity of the body of Christ by standing for biblical truth.”

As the NAE decides on its future leadership, it will have to answer: Does it wish to go further down the same road after the NCC? Or can it reclaim a distinctly evangelical identity that reflects the priorities of the member denominations and the larger evangelical community? Will the NAE board set the direction, and will the staff be accountable to the board? In the end, will the NAE be about more than politics?