The Evangelical movement has its roots in the early 1800s. Some theologians thought liberal Christians lost their way and sought to unify all protestant denominations into a single religion, one based on a literal and conservative interpretation of the Bible.

Evangelicals identify as fundamentalists because of their back-to-basics approach of focusing on fundamental Biblical beliefs. Fundamentalists believe they have the correct interpretation of the Bible and are the only true Christians, the Bible commands them to bring others into the faith, and all other religions are cults. They also think their God created man in his image, evolution is the Antichrist’s work, people are “born-again” when they accept Jesus as their savior, and the end time is near.

Another belief, unspoken but abundantly clear by the segregated Evangelical churches, is white supremacy. Just as the nation divided over slavery, so did once-unified denominations. In the North, most liberal fundamentalists were abolitionists. They believed one could not be a Christian and own other people, but they were not for equality. Conservative southern fundamentalists solved that question by not regarding Black people as humans.

The most crucial goal of all Evangelicals is to end abortion, but it wasn’t always this way. In 1968, Evangelical leaders met to discuss abortion. Unable to reach a consensus, the group resolved to set aside the question and support a woman’s right to choose. Subsequently, in 1971,  two years before Roe v. Wade, the Southern Baptist Convention, a bastion of conservatism, moved to make abortion legal.

So how did abortion become the central issue for Evangelicals, and why do they support conservatives politically? The answer is Paul Weyrich.

Weyrich, founder of the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the Moral Majority, saw white Evangelicals as an emotionally driven group he could manipulate for conservative political goals. Three of these goals are voter suppression, gerrymandering state-level congressional districts to ensure conservative candidates win — even in some predominately liberal states — and packing the Supreme Court.

These three Weyrich quotes are the essence of the conservative white Evangelical movement today:

“So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

“We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country.”

“The real enemy is the secular humanist mindset which seeks to destroy everything that is good in this society.”

Fundamentalists began to organize politically around school integration when the Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregated public schools. Still, Weyrich realized racism was not the emotionally driven issue he needed to unify Evangelicals in the long run. After years of analyzing various strategies, Weyrich realized five years after Roe v. Wade that abortion was the visceral issue that would work, and he was right.

The first goal Weyrich had was to mold a politician into a presidential candidate the fundamentalists would support. This person would have to see government as the problem, support Christian privilege, and oppose abortion and gay rights. The Federalist Society found their man in Ronald Reagan, and ever since the Federalist Society has become the organization Evangelicals and conservatives rely on to help decide who they should nominate for president and the Supreme Court.

According to a 2018 Gallup report, 36% of white Americans identify as Evangelical, and white Evangelicals overwhelmingly support conservative candidates. In the 2016 election, their high turnout was driven by the Evangelicals goal of stacking the Supreme Court and overturning Roe v. Wade. The first has been accomplished, and the second is all but assured.

There is some recent conflict within the Evangelical community over maintaining loyalty to conservative candidates at the expense of compromising some of their fundamental beliefs. Those who analyze election results will soon know what percentage of Evangelicals voted and for whom.

Due to the candidate’s razor-thin margin, my guess is a significant number of fundamentalists sacrificed character, honesty, decency and empathy for others on the altar of ending abortion.

Tom Waddell is president of the Maine Chapter of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. He welcomes comments at: president@ffrfmaine.org

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