The rise of the religious right has profoundly shaped American political and social life for the past 30 years, and Chuck Donovan has been a participant in it all. The 58-year-old Virginia resident worked as a writer in the Reagan White House before going on to help craft and then lead the influential Family Research Council. Since 2009, Donovan has been a senior research fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society. He spoke with The Washington Examiner about the faith that has helped to form and guide his views throughout a movement and a career. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I’m Catholic, and I don’t generally put an adjective in front of that. I have expressed, though, the idea of evangelical Catholicism because I believe that the Scriptures are true and necessary for eternal salvation.
I am a cradle Catholic – I was raised in the faith and it’s been a part of my education from grade school through college. The greatest strength of the church, for me, is that it has survived for more than 20 centuries and it has sailed upright no matter what the shifting tides.
A common reaction among supporters of gay marriage to legislation in defense of traditional marriage is to say that God’s greatest commandment is to love God, and love one’s neighbor as oneself. How do you reconcile that basic call with efforts to hinder gay marriage?
There are many forms of love that don’t necessarily constitute marriage – love among friends, and within families, for example. But when sexuality enters the realm of love, we enter an area of mutual obligation that extends to children and the community. Without that obligation, affections are insufficient to bond and keep families together across time and space. That obligation is what renders marriage socially significant.
Love, too, is not only about our physical or emotional sentiments, but it’s about doing the right thing – despite what our impulses or affections may tell us are appropriate.
From your vantage as a longtime leader in the fight against abortion, what is your advice to young activists, facing what many would deem a political weariness for the issue?
I would advise young activists to keep your eyes on the fact that we have much further to go before all of the benefits of modern prenatal medicine and social support have been provided to the women who need it. The pro-life movement should understand itself as the champion of the best medical care for mothers and their unborn children – not just as an opponent of a brutal practice. That carries you into providing alternatives, and being very concerned about the quality of prenatal care, and informing people that medicine is making it possible to save ever younger and sicker babies. That should be on our agenda too.
How must conservative Christian politicians act to ensure their viability in the future, and how have they succeeded in recent years?
To paraphrase St. Francis of Assisi, preach the Gospel always, and when necessary, use words. The Christian witness has always made the most progress when others see something in that person that they admire and desire for themselves – peace, the ability to forgive, compassion, walking across barriers like the Good Samaritan did.
Christian politicians have done better than they’ve been given credit for – the media is not friendly to the public policy voice of Christian organizations. And the politicians have an incredible burden coming to a city that’s more polarized than ever. While working with the conviction to share a Christian vision with everyone, they often get pulled into very polarizing party strategies. Over the long haul, that can subject them to some harsh criticism.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe that God exists. I believe He’s the ultimate truth, and the ultimate goodness, and that He has a realistic understanding that His creatures are fallen, but He’d like to see us perfected. We make the greatest mistake when we think we can perfect ourselves, or each other, without Him.
I also believe we have a slack insight for what uses God can make of suffering to bring us closer to a realization of what salvation really is. The hardest lesson, I think, is that God does save, but that he doesn’t always send the posse the moment we ask for it.
– Leah Fabel
