Word: reed
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Redemption earns even more glory among evangelicals than consistent faith and virtue. And for Ralph Reed, sudden self-reform has always come easily. A heavy smoker as an undergraduate at the University of Georgia in the early 1980s, he pitched his pack of Marlboro Lights out a car window one day and never bought another. Booze was also a problem, so he went instantly dry during the summer after graduation. Weeks later, sipping soda in a Washington saloon as some pals drank harder stuff, he was seized by a thirst for "deeper spiritual meaning" in his life. Reed chose...
...Today Reed strives, by his lights at least, to make politics serve those causes as executive director of Christian Coalition, the advocacy group founded by Pat Robertson four years ago. Reed's organizational and strategic talents have made the coalition the most potent unit within what its leaders call the profamily movement. He is also becoming a prophet and a public promoter of the conservative Christian cause in general. When he experiences an epiphany these days, the event is complex and political rather than religious and personal. His changing visions become the subject of TV schmooze shows and Washington seminars...
This week Christian Coalition holds its annual Road to Victory conference. For the first time, the gathering of 2,000 cultural warriors will be in Washington rather than Virginia Beach, and will be open to press coverage. To overcome the group's conspiratorial image, Reed decided on the motif of a coming-out party. In a bow to political ecumenism, he persuaded David Wilhelm, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to be the token liberal among dozens of conservative speakers. The movement remains overwhelmingly white and has roots in the backlash against the civil rights revolution; so Reed commissioned...
...Reed's goal is to give the movement a gentler, more catholic visage. He wants to make peace with mainstream Republicans while continuing the movement's war with secular liberals. The religious right must broaden its agenda, he believes, because "we have allowed ourselves to be ghettoized by a narrow band of issues like abortion, homosexual rights and prayer in school." Even the majority of Evangelicals, he argues, are more interested in taxes, crime and the quality of education. Becoming more ecumenical will entail making alliances of convenience with conventional conservatives who, for example, do not favor outlawing abortion. This...
ASSISTANT EDITORS: Ursula Nadasdy de Gallo, Andrea Dorfman, Brigid O'Hara-Forster, William Tynan, Sidney Urquhart, Jane Van Tassel (Department Heads); Bernard Baumohl, David Bjerklie, Val Castronovo, Mary McC. Fernandez, Georgia Harbison, Ratu Kamlani, Sue Raffety, Susan M. Reed, Elizabeth Rudulph, Susanne Washburn, Linda Young...