John Piper has called out the Tea Party movement, and I agree with John Piper. He references this article in the NY Times that discusses how the Tea Party purposefully avoid social issues.
This article identifies an issues symptomatic of a bigger problem aloft in the Conservative movement, it is a movement that centers around economics and avoids social issues. The are known by different names, “Fiscal Conservatives”, “Moderates”, but they attempt to marginalize Conservatives who stand firm in their social values, even to the point of falsely representing them as not being conservative enough from a fiscal standpoint. This part of the Conservative movement has little patience for the pro-life part of the movement, and almost act embarrassed by them. It’s part of the reason Christian Conservatives were willing to embrace someone with an iffy pro-life record, like Mitt Romney, and through a clearly strong pro-life candidate like Mike Huckabee under the bus. In other words, it is fiscal value that define what is Conservative to this group, not social values.
We need to continue to push the Conservative social issues agenda as well. Anyone who knows history knows that a nation’s economic stability is closely connected to its moral compass.
