But what might another path—one that would steer Evangelical political witness away from power—look like? Between 1998 and 2006, several options emerged. The first was George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” In 1999, Bush introduced the new brand in a speech at a Methodist church in Indianapolis. “Government can spend money,” he said, “but it can’t put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives. That is done in churches and synagogues and mosques and charities that warm the cold of life.” If elected, Bush promised to spend $8 billion on compassionate-conservative programs and policies, including new tax deductions for charitable giving.
Central to Bush’s program was his endorsement of Charitable Choice, an approach to welfare reform that allowed religious organizations to compete for government funding to help the poor. The Evangelical president’s approach deviated from the Christian right’s focus on abortion and school prayer. Bush was careful in his statements: he did not believe the federal government should support churches or religion directly. “There’s a big difference,” Bush said, “between funding religion and funding the program managed by a religious institution.” The distinction was a fine one and led to much debate, but Bush was trying to offer an alternative path of political engagement with religion and calling Evangelicals to join him.
The Christian right didn’t quite know how to respond; it seemed almost incapable of thinking about political action as a means of helping the poor. Ari Fleischer, Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s spokesperson, said that Bush’s Indianapolis speech proved that he would “make a great future president...of the American Red Cross.” Others saw it as a wishy-washy distraction from the most fundamental moral issues of the age. “I don’t see how a ‘compassionate conservative’ can be ambiguous about protecting unborn children,” said Family Research Council president Gary Bauer after Bush refused to back an antiabortion constitutional amendment. James Dobson could not connect Bush’s compassion with his refusal to make abortion a litmus test for federal justices. The “lights are going out” on the country’s moral landscape, he said. Pat Robertson supported Bush’s faith-based programs in principle but was “leery” of taking federal money. “We’re going to give you tons of money,” he said, “but you can’t talk about your faith, you can’t teach them the Torah, you can’t talk about Jesus or what have you, at that point they have essentially killed the essence of that organization.”