Download or read book Religious Rhetoric in US Right Wing Politics written by Chiara M. Migliori and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The subject of this book is an extremely timely and important one. Migliori's work is the first large-scale qualitative study of how and why religious conservatism bolstered support for Trump despite his overt character flaws. Understanding the Trump phenomenon is absolutely essential due to its unprecedented nature in the U.S. and its similarity to right-wing authoritarian politics in other national contexts." - Laura Olson, Thurmond Professor of Political Science, Clemson University, USA This book seeks to understand white conservative Christians' support for Donald Trump, using their own words. Drawing on the triangular relationship between the 45th president, and his voters, and religious organizations, this work investigates the creation of the tale of Trump as the protector and enhancer of Christian values. The first part of the book discusses in detail the white conservative Christian constituency in the United States, and the development of feelings of displacement and resentment fostered by intergroup threat and nationalism. The central part focuses on the actor known as the "Religious Right," through the rhetoric of one of their most representative organizations in the twenty-first century. The final part focuses on the character of Donald Trump and his peculiar relationship with religious discourse. The book demonstrates that while such discourse is expected of Trump as a Republican candidate, his approach to it is characterized by detachment and sloganized exploitation of Christian symbols. Ultimately, the book highlights the cultural tools that are crucial in the reproduction of structures of inequality and the ways they have been used by conservative politicians and groups to accumulate power. Chiara M. Migliori earned her PhD in 2020 from the Graduate School of North American Studies, John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

Download or read book To Bring the Good News to All Nations written by Lauren Frances Turek and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When American evangelicals flocked to Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe in the late twentieth century to fulfill their Biblical mandate for global evangelism, their experiences abroad led them to engage more deeply in foreign policy activism at home. Lauren Frances Turek tracks these trends and illuminates the complex and significant ways in which religion shaped America's role in the late–Cold War world. In To Bring the Good News to All Nations, she examines the growth and influence of Christian foreign policy lobbying groups in the United States beginning in the 1970s, assesses the effectiveness of Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favored regimes, and considers how those same groups promoted the imposition of economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that stifled evangelism. Using archival materials from both religious and government sources, To Bring the Good News to All Nations links the development of evangelical foreign policy lobbying to the overseas missionary agenda. Turek's case studies—Guatemala, South Africa, and the Soviet Union—reveal the extent of Christian influence on American foreign policy from the late 1970s through the 1990s. Evangelical policy work also reshaped the lives of Christians overseas and contributed to a reorientation of U.S. human rights policy. Efforts to promote global evangelism and support foreign brethren led activists to push Congress to grant aid to favored, yet repressive, regimes in countries such as Guatemala while imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on nations that persecuted Christians, such as the Soviet Union. This advocacy shifted the definitions and priorities of U.S. human rights policies with lasting repercussions that can be traced into the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Religious Rhetoric in US Right Wing Politics written by Chiara M. Migliori and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-04-13 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book seeks to understand white conservative Christians’ support for Donald Trump, using their own words. Drawing on the triangular relationship between the 45th president, and his voters, and religious organizations, this work investigates the creation of the tale of Trump as the protector and enhancer of Christian values. The first part of the book discusses in detail the white conservative Christian constituency in the United States, and the development of feelings of displacement and resentment fostered by intergroup threat and nationalism. The central part focuses on the actor known as the “Religious Right,” through the rhetoric of one of their most representative organizations in the twenty-first century. The final part focuses on the character of Donald Trump and his peculiar relationship with religious discourse. The book demonstrates that while such discourse is expected of Trump as a Republican candidate, his approach to it is characterized by detachment and sloganized exploitation of Christian symbols. Ultimately, the book highlights the cultural tools that are crucial in the reproduction of structures of inequality and the ways they have been used by conservative politicians and groups to accumulate power.

Download or read book Religion Politics and the Christian Right written by Mark Lewis Taylor and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princeton theologian Mark Taylor here looks at the influence and stance of the right-wing Christian movement in the U.S. He questions its religious authenticity, its claim to be called Christian, and the ethical stands it has taken in national politics of the last ten years. The heart of Taylor's argument is Jesus himself. Using the latest New Testament scholarship on the historical Jesus and his tactic in relation to the Roman Empire, Taylor argues that Jesus' life and work and message are inherently political and driven by the need to show God's love for the poor, condemnation of the oppressor, and search for a reign of justice. These Christian hallmarks, Taylor asserts, stand as a critical corrective to a distorted Christianity that often dominates the U.S. political scene today.

Download or read book Piety Politics written by Reverend Barry W. Lynn and published by Forum Books. This book was released on 2006-10-03 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reverend Barry Lynn explains why the Religious Right has it all wrong. In the wake of the 2004 presidential election, the Religious Right insisted that George Bush had been handed a mandate for an ideology-based social agenda, including the passage of a “marriage amendment” to ban same-sex unions, diversion of tax money to religious groups through “faith-based initiatives,” the teaching of creationism in public schools, and restrictions on abortion. Led by an aggressive band of television preachers and extremist radio personalities, the Religious Right set its sights on demolishing the wall of separation between church and state. The Reverend Barry Lynn is a devout Christian, but this propaganda effort disturbs him deeply. He argues that politicians need to stop looking to the Bible to justify their actions and should consult another source instead: the U.S. Constitution. When the Founding Fathers of our great nation created the Constitution, they had seen firsthand the dangers of an injudicious mix of religion and government. They knew what it was like to live under the yoke of state-imposed faith. They drew up a model for the new nation that would allow absolute freedom of religion. They knew that religion, united with the raw power of government, spawns tyranny. Yet the Religious Right now seems distrustful of those principles inherent in the Constitution, viewing the separation of church and state only as a dangerous anti-Christian principle imposed upon our nation. In reality, the separation between church and state has been an important ally to religion: with the state out of the picture, hundreds of religions have grown and prospered. Religion doesn’t need the government’s assistance, any more than it is practical or appropriate for religious doctrine to be fostered in the government or taught in public schools. As an explicitly religious figure speaking out against the Religious Right, Lynn has incurred the wrath of such personalities as Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who once said Lynn was “lower than a child molester.” Lynn has continuously taken on these radicals of the Religious Right calmly and rationally, using their own statements and religious fervor to prove that when they attack the constitutionally mandated separation, they’re actually attacking freedom of religion. In Piety & Politics, the Reverend Barry Lynn continues the fight—educating Americans about what is at stake, explaining why it is crucial that we maintain the separation of church and state, and galvanizing us to defend the honor of our religious freedom.

Download or read book Christians Against Christianity written by Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely and galvanizing work that examines how right-wing evangelical Christians have veered from an admirable faith to a pernicious, destructive ideology. Today’s right-wing Evangelical Christianity stands as the very antithesis of the message of Jesus Christ. In his new book, Christians Against Christianity, best-selling author and religious scholar Obery M. Hendricks Jr. challenges right-wing evangelicals on the terrain of their own religious claims, exposing the falsehoods, contradictions, and misuses of the Bible that are embedded in their rabid homophobia, their poorly veiled racism and demonizing of immigrants and Muslims, and their ungodly alliance with big business against the interests of American workers. He scathingly indicts the religious leaders who helped facilitate the rise of the notoriously unchristian Donald Trump, likening them to the “court jesters” and hypocritical priestly sycophants of bygone eras who unquestioningly supported their sovereigns’ every act, no matter how hateful or destructive to those they were supposed to serve. In the wake of the deadly insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol, Christians Against Christianity is a clarion call to stand up to the hypocrisy of the evangelical Right, as well as a guide for Christians to return their faith to the life-affirming message that Jesus brought and died for. What Hendricks offers is a provocative diagnosis, an urgent warning that right-wing evangelicals’ aspirations for Christian nationalist supremacy are a looming threat, not only to Christian decency but to democracy itself. What they offer to America is anything but good news.

Download or read book God s Own Country written by Stephen Bates and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2011-11-24 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Right-wing evangelical Christianity has come to dominate American political and social life in recent years, dividing the country and sparking cultural and moral battles. High politics and low tactics frame a fierce debate which goes much further back in the country's history than the accession of George W. Bush in 2001. It's a battle that sears America's soul and affects the world. In this book Stephen Bates explains why what happens in the Bible Belt matters to us and how there are those who hope to export the battle to Britain. American fundamentalist religion has the potential to impact on crucial and acutely dangerous areas of the world. Its priorities are often arcane and sometimes weird. But it is already affecting American government policy at home and abroad: not least in Israel and the Middle East. How is religion affecting the current presidential elections and where will America's battle for its soul take the world next?

Download or read book The Morality of Spin written by Nathaniel J. Klemp and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp's nuanced assessment, highlighting both democratic vices and virtues of the politi.

Download or read book God Wills it written by David O'Connell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God Wills It is a comprehensive study of presidential religious rhetoric. Using careful analysis of hundreds of transcripts, David O'Connell reveals the hidden strategy behind presidential religious speech. He asks when and why religious language is used, and when it is, whether such language is influential.Case studies explore the religious arguments presidents have made to defend their decisions on issues like defense spending, environmental protection, and presidential scandals. O'Connell provides strong evidence that when religious rhetoric is used public opinion typically goes against the president, the media reacts harshly to his words, and Congress fails to do as he wants. An experimental chapter casts even further doubt on the persuasiveness of religious rhetoric.God Wills It shows that presidents do not talk this way because they want to. Presidents like Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were quite uncomfortable using faith to promote their agendas. They did so because they felt they must. God Wills It shows that even if presidents attempt to call on the deity, the more important question remains: Will God come when they do?

Download or read book The God Strategy written by David Domke and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the way they speak about God to audiences they visit and policies they support, U.S. politicians increasingly use religion as a partisan weapon. The God Strategy identifies four crucial religious signals used by Republicans and Democrats from Ronald Reagan in 1980 to Barack Obama in 2008.

Download or read book American Theocracy written by Kevin Phillips and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-03-21 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An explosive examination of the coalition of forces that threatens the nation, from the bestselling author of American Dynasty In his two most recent bestselling books, American Dynasty and Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips established himself as a powerful critic of the political and economic forces that rule—and imperil—the United States, tracing the ever more alarming path of the emerging Republican majority’s rise to power. Now Phillips takes an uncompromising view of the current age of global overreach, fundamentalist religion, diminishing resources, and ballooning debt under the GOP majority. With an eye to the past and a searing vision of the future, Phillips confirms what too many Americans are still unwilling to admit about the depth of our misgovernment.

Download or read book Religion Populism and Modernity written by Atalia Omer and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2023-09-15 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely book, an interdisciplinary group of scholars investigates the recent resurfacing of White Christian nationalism and racism in populist movements across the globe. Religion, Populism, and Modernity examines the recent rise of White Christian nationalism in Europe and the United States, focusing on how right-wing populist leaders and groups have mobilized racist and xenophobic rhetoric in their bids for political power. As the contributors to this volume show, this mobilization is deeply rooted in the broader structures of western modernity and as such requires an intersectional analysis that considers race, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, and religion together. The contributors explore a number of case studies, including White nationalism in the United States among both evangelicals and Catholics, anti- and philosemitism in Poland, the Far Right party Alternative for Germany, Islamophobia in Norway and France, and the entanglement of climate change opposition in right-wing parties throughout Europe. By extending the scope of these essays beyond Trump and Brexit, the contributors remind us that these two events are not exceptions to the rule of the normal functioning of liberal democracies. Rather, they are in fact but recent examples of long-standing trends in Europe and the United States. As the editors to the volume contend, confronting these issues requires that we not only unearth their historical precedents but also imagine futures that point to new ways of being beyond them. Contributors: Atalia Omer, Joshua Lupo, Philip Gorski, Jason A. Springs, R. Scott Appleby, Richard Amesbury, Geneviève Zubrzycki, Geneviève Zubrzycki, Yolande Jansen, Jasmijn Leeuwenkamp, Sindre Bangstad, and Ebrahim Moosa.

Download or read book Why Conservatives Tell Stories and Liberals Don t written by David M Ricci and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do conservatives tell stories? Because it helps them win elections and assail liberal policies like health care reform and economic stimulus. "Why" is important, but the "what" and the "how" behind the stories that conservatives tell are equally interesting, and in this new book, David Ricci reveals all. He shows how conservative activists and candidates tell many tales that come together to project a large-scale story; a cultural narrative; a vision of what America is and what it should do to prosper socially, economically, and politically. Liberals, by contrast, tend to look for theories rather than stories, for mathematical explanations rather than theological axioms, for data rather than anecdotes, and for statistics rather than homilies. The difference is paradoxical. Liberals are unlikely to fashion sweeping narratives that capture the public s attention and commitment. Yet conservatives may tell attractive stories like the ones that got us into Iraq that momentarily capture voter support but end up costing the country more than it can afford."

Download or read book The Immoral Majority written by Ben Howe and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a National Bestseller! Evangelicals are losing the culture war. What if it’s their fault? In 2016, writer and filmmaker Ben Howe found himself disillusioned with the religious movement he’d always called home. In the pursuit of electoral victory, many American evangelicals embraced moral relativism and toxic partisanship. Whatever happened to the Moral Majority, who headed to Washington in the ’80s to plant the flag of Christian values? Where were the Christian leaders that emerged from that movement and led the charge against Bill Clinton for his deception and unfaithfulness? Was all that a sham? Or have they just lost sight of why they wanted to win in the first place? From the 1980s scandals till today, evangelicals have often been caricatured as a congregation of judgmental and prudish rubes taken in by thundering pastors consumed with greed and lust for power. Did the critics have a point? In The Immoral Majority, Howe—still a believer and still deeply conservative—analyzes and debunks the intellectual dishonesty and manipulative rhetoric which evangelical leaders use to convince Christians to toe the Republican Party line. He walks us through the history of the Christian Right, as well as the events of the last three decades which led to the current state of the conservative movement at large. As long as evangelicals prioritize power over persuasion, Howe argues, their pews will be empty and their national influence will dwindle. If evangelicals hope to avoid cultural irrelevance going forward, it will mean valuing the eternal over the ephemeral, humility over ego, and resisting the seduction of political power, no matter the cost. The Immoral Majority demonstrates how the Religious Right is choosing the profits of this world at the cost of its soul—and why it’s not too late to change course.

Download or read book Not by Politics Alone written by Sara Diamond and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this incisive work, Sara Diamond expands our understanding of the Christian Right beyond what is commonly known about its electoral clout, shedding light on the rarely seen boundaries and intersections where politics and culture converge. The book examines the web of grassroots cultural institutions, including publishing houses, law firms, broadcast stations, and church-centered community programs, that have helped conservative evangelical groups maintain their influence for over two decades. Highlighting the movement's complex alliance with the Republican Party, Diamond provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the formation, organizing strategies, and heated internal debates of such powerful national organizations as Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition. She offers a richly textured analysis of how the rubric of "family values" has been used to infuse evangelical beliefs into local and national discussions around such disparate issues as childrearing, gay rights, abortion, public education, and funding for the arts.

Download or read book American Grace written by Robert D. Putnam and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Draws on three national surveys on religion, as well as research conducted by congregations across the United States, to examine the profound impact it has had on American life and how religious attitudes have changed in recent decades.

Download or read book The Paranoid Style in American Politics written by Richard Hofstadter and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-06-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States.