Red Iowaves

My rental car knew why I was in Iowa–to talk to evangelical Christians about the environment. When I turned the key in the ignition, the radio turned on to a Christian station, Family Radio (91.3 FM), playing a segment called “Creation Moment,” dedicated to explicating how the natural world “proves” the truth of biblical creation. This episode claimed that animals in any given place communicate in different pitch levels, keeping out of each others’ frequencies in the same way radio stations do not broadcast on the same bandwith as their competitors. If radio stations need the FCC to get along, the host’s reasoning seemed to go, then animals must need God to work out such an orderly arrangement.

When Family Radio switched to irritating, organ-backed classical devotional music, I searched for Christian radio in its usual haunts on the AM dial. Rush Limbaugh was coming out of my speakers as soon as I switched bands. The next station my seek button landed on had Bill O’Reilly and his “Radio Factor.” I finally found a Christian station–a broadcast by Endtime Ministries–but could only listen for a few minutes of the host’s interpretation of the Israel-Palestinian peace talks as a prelude to the coming of the Anti-Christ for only a few minutes before I retreated to the comfort of National Public Radio.

This tour through the far right of Christian conservatism was jarringly different from what I’d been reading on the plane, Joel Hunter’s Right Wing, Wrong Bird. Hunter, Pastor of Northland Church in Orlando, Florida, was elected president of the Christian Coalition in 2006, but declined the post because he wanted the organization to embrace a set of issues beyond opposing abortion and gay marriage. (Though he continues to be a strong supporter of those agenda items, too.) Right Wing, Wrong Bird is Hunter’s critique of the narrowly focused, Christian social conservatives who substitute invective and outrageous antics for reasoned, respectful debate. In addition for prescribing a change in tone, Hunter calls for expanding the evangelical agenda to include concern for human rights, poverty, and the environment. He also believes evangelicals have been hurt by their close relationship with the GOP.

Hunter is on the board of the largest evangelical organization, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), and the World Evangelical Fellowship. An NAE survey of pastors suggests that Hunter’s broad-based agenda is widely shared–they consider climate change one of their top concern. Yet if the radio waves and the local Christian Coalition affiliate, the Iowa Christian Alliance (IAC), are any indication, the grassroots are as red and righteous as ever in the nation’s first caucus state. The top three items for evangelical voters, according to IAC president Steve Scheffler, are “protect[ing] traditional marriage [and] the sanctity of life, [and] securing the borders.” Scheffler dismissed the notion that the environment was a Christian issue was “poppycock.”

Over the next few days, I hope to find out whether Hunter and Scheffler just have fundamentally different constituencies within the evangelical movement or whether changes Hunter is seeking have yet to make their way to Iowa. I’ll be off to his church in January.