The Christian Coalition of America is known by most Americans as being one of the first large and highly visible organizations in the Religious Right. Past leaders have included Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed. Recently secularists have been cheering the Christian Coalition’s fall from power, though many other Religious Right groups have since steadily increased in power and visibility. Until recently I was among them.

So why am I hoping the Christian Coalition will make a resurgence among conservative Christians? The organization once helped set the Religious Right’s narrow focus of issues concerned with (what we on the Left consider to be) issues of restrictions. Namely abortion, homosexuality, private schools vs. public schools, increased presence of Evangelical Christianity in the public sphere, and so forth. But I believe the leadership of the Christian Coalition has finally realized just how narrow this focus is and the stagnation it to which it has led.

Something that may shock those on the Left is that the state chapters of the Coalition in Alabama, Georgia and Iowa have pulled away from the national organization, citing a supposed left-leaning trend in the national organization. Some basis for this argument is that the Coalition has teamed up with MoveOn.org on the issue of network neutrality. Here’s the kicker: on the first of the month Rev. Dr. Joel C. Hunter was appointed as the Coalition’s new chairman starting next year. I had not heard of Hunter before his interview on last week’s State of Belief, but he is known among Evangelicals as a vocal voice in the growing movement to stop global warming. Hunter sees the maintenance of the climate as a Biblical imperative. Hunter has also authored a book I am interested in reading entitled Right Wing, Wrong Bird on the topic of political involvement of conservative Christians. Just from listening to his interview on State of Belief and the brief podcasts on his website I can tell that Rev. Hunter is an intelligent, humble, compassionate and forward-thinking person.

I never thought I’d say that about a self-avowed member of the Religious Right. He might seem liberal to both conservatives and liberals, but it is quite important for everyone to remember that he is not. He is conservative. The Christian Coalition is a conservative organization. It is for exactly this reason that I am so excited about his appointment. The aforementioned characteristics I used to describe Rev. Hunter are characteristics that will be needed for those on the Left and the Right if we hope to get anywhere.

I think that Rev. Hunter will be open to dialogue with liberals. Too many leaders of the Religious Right have not sought dialogue. They are firebrands that just want to yell so only they get heard. But this is not how democracy works, and I’m sure Rev. Hunter and those like him realize this. Democracy is about nothing if not discussion. Though I suspect that many in the Religious Right don’t really care for democracy at all. Not only committed to democracy, Hunter makes a corollary to Jesus’ command to love one’s neighbour on The Leadership Blog, “[My goal is] to impact the world for Christ in a way that non-Christians are thankful.”

Another hope I have for the refocused Christian Coalition is that it will help conservative Christians to see beyond a black and white worldview. The Christian Coalition might be able to offer them a new vision of what can be achieved. I also hope that this will help those that are anti-Christian or anti-religion to also move beyond black and white views of Christianity/religion. Though we may disagree on issues of human sexuality and reproductive health and education, I am confident that we can make progress on the environment, poverty and other “compassion issues” as Rev. Hunter calls them. To use his own words, “Unless Christians can explain their values and their voting decisions in an intellectually credible way to those who disagree, we will not create understanding … or make headway on the issues most important to us.” So while I won’t be contributing money or volunteer hours to the Christian Coalition anytime soon, I will be glad to know that they will be actually acting in a way that is based on what Jesus taught.