Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory

Evidence

Baptists, in particular, applauded the Roe decision as an appropriate articulation of the line of division between church and state, between personal morality and state regulation of individual behavior. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” W. Barry Garrett of Baptist Press wrote. Floyd Robertson of the National Association of Evangelicals disagreed with the Roe decision, but he believed that legal redress should not be a priority for evangelicals. “The abortion issue should also remind evangelicals that the church must never rely on the state to support its mission or enforce its moral standards,” he wrote in the summer 1973 issue of the organization’s newsletter, United Evangelical Action. “The church and state must be separate. The actions and conduct of Christians transcend the secular community for which the state is responsible.” — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 92

Categorization

• QUESTION: When and why did evangelicals abandon the church-state separation argument for opposing abortion?
• XREF: connects to: The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 87; A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist publicly supported Roe v. Wade in 1973 — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 91; Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 122 (+6 more)

Related

• Baptist leaders initially framed Roe as a victory for church-state separation (similarity 0.93)
• Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe (similarity 0.88)
• A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist publicly supported Roe v. Wade in 1973 (similarity 0.86)
• A leading Southern Baptist fundamentalist welcomed the Roe decision as correct (similarity 0.85)
• Evangelicals adopted anti-abortion politics six years after Roe for political gain (similarity 0.85)
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s (similarity 0.84)
• Conservative Christians originally welcomed Roe v. Wade as advancing religious liberty (similarity 0.84)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.84)
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. (similarity 0.84)
• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.84)
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity (similarity 0.83)
• The Religious Right fabricated an origin myth linking its birth to Roe v. Wade (similarity 0.83)
• Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue (similarity 0.81)
• Confronting the abortion myth could reorient the whole evangelical agenda (similarity 0.81)
• The 1976 article cited as evangelical antiabortion genesis was primarily a general cultural-engagement call (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #corroborates (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe #exemplifies (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 96