Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left written by L. Benjamin Rolsky and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades now, Americans have believed that their country is deeply divided by “culture wars” waged between religious conservatives and secular liberals. In most instances, Protestant conservatives have been cast as the instigators of such warfare, while religious liberals have been largely ignored. In this book, L. Benjamin Rolsky examines the ways in which American liberalism has helped shape cultural conflict since the 1970s through the story of how television writer and producer Norman Lear galvanized the religious left into action. The creator of comedies such as All in the Family and Maude, Lear was spurred to found the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way in response to the rise of the religious right. Rolsky offers engaged readings of Lear’s iconic sitcoms and published writings, considering them as an expression of what he calls the spiritual politics of the religious left. He shows how prime-time television became a focus of political dispute and demonstrates how Lear’s emergence as an interfaith activist catalyzed ecumenical Protestants, Catholics, and Jews who were determined to push back against conservatism’s ascent. Rolsky concludes that Lear’s political involvement exemplified religious liberals’ commitment to engaging politics on explicitly moral grounds in defense of what they saw as the public interest. An interdisciplinary analysis of the definitive cultural clashes of our fractious times, The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left foregrounds the foundational roles played by popular culture, television, and media in America’s religious history.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right written by Steve Bruce and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1988 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on survey data and interviews with fundamentalist activitsts to chart the rise and fall of the New Christian Right, Bruce traces the postwar social and religious origins of the movement and evaluates its achievements.
Download or read book The New Christian Right written by Robert C. Liebman and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book of original essays provides an objective and enlightening analysis of the emergence and changing forms of the New Christian Right. The subject is in itself important in contemporary American life, but in addition The New Christian Right reexamines standard theories of social movements and the relationship between religion and politics in America today. The book presents findings from original research, including surveys, personal interviews with elites, analysis of financial documents, reanalysis of existing data, and analysis of direct-mail solicitations and other primary literature. The New Christian Right is balanced and objective rather than partisan and evaluative. Using non-technical and non-jargonistic language, the authors raise questions concerning the nature of religion, the role of status groups, and contemporary directions in American culture.
Download or read book Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right written by Seth Dowland and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last three decades of the twentieth century, evangelical leaders and conservative politicians developed a political agenda that thrust "family values" onto the nation's consciousness. Ministers, legislators, and laypeople came together to fight abortion, gay rights, and major feminist objectives. They supported private Christian schools, home schooling, and a strong military. Family values leaders like Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Bryant, and James Dobson became increasingly supportive of the Republican Party, which accommodated the language of family values in its platforms and campaigns. The family values agenda created a bond between evangelicalism and political conservatism. Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right chronicles how the family values agenda became so powerful in American political life and why it appealed to conservative evangelical Christians. Conservative evangelicals saw traditional gender norms as crucial in cultivating morality. They thought these gender norms would reaffirm the importance of clear lines of authority that the social revolutions of the 1960s had undermined. In the 1970s and 1980s, then, evangelicals founded Christian academies and developed homeschooling curricula that put conservative ideas about gender and authority front and center. Campaigns against abortion and feminism coalesced around a belief that God created women as wives and mothers—a belief that conservative evangelicals thought feminists and pro-choice advocates threatened. Likewise, Christian right leaders championed a particular vision of masculinity in their campaigns against gay rights and nuclear disarmament. Movements like the Promise Keepers called men to take responsibility for leading their families. Christian right political campaigns and pro-family organizations drew on conservative evangelical beliefs about men, women, children, and authority. These beliefs—known collectively as family values—became the most important religious agenda in late twentieth-century American politics.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right written by Steve Bruce and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book With God on Our Side written by William Curtis Martin and published by Broadway. This book was released on 2005 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of the Religious Right is one of the most important political and cultural stories of our time. To many, this controversial movement threatens to upset the nation's delicate balance of religious and secular interests. To others, the Religious Right is valiantly struggling to preserve religious liberty and to prove itself as the last, best hope to save America's soul. In With God on Our Side --the first balanced account of conservative Christians' impact on post-war politics--William Martin paints a vivid and authoritative portrait of America's most powerful political interest group. Although its members now number between forty and sixty million people, the Religious Right has not always carried the tremendous--and growing--political clout it enjoys today. A hundred years ago, scattered groups of conservative Christians worked fervently to spread the Gospel, but their involvement in politics was marginal. Early in this century, however, a series of charismatic and ambitious leaders began transforming the movement; by the election of John F. Kennedy as our first Catholic president, the Religious Right had found its voice. Politics and religion began mixing as never before. From Richard Nixon's strategic manipulation of Graham's religious influence in the 1970s, to Ronald Reagan's association with Falwell's Moral Majority in the 1980s, to the Christian Coalition's emergence as a slick, sophisticated political machine, the line separating the pulpit from the presidency became increasingly blurred. Now, preachers such as Graham, Falwell, and Pat Robertson preside over ministries so vast and well organized that most politicians can ill afford to ignore their views--or lose their votes. In recent years, the Religious Right's political influence has propelled it into spheres beyond pure politics. Race relations, abortion and reproductive rights, school curricula, the nature and role of the family--conservative Christians have embraced all of these socially charged issues, and their activism has irrevocably altered the way America confronts its thorniest problems. How does a free society draw the line between Church and State without removing religious conviction from public life? What motivates individual Americans to do battle in the culture wars? Most importantly, when politicians and religiously motivated activists join forces, who holds the reins? Drawing on over 100 new interviews with key figures in the movement, William Martin brilliantly captures the spirit of the age as he explores both sides of this dramatic debate. Written in conjunction with the producers of the public television series of the same name, this landmark book is essential reading for all Americans--conservative and liberal, fundamentalist and atheist--who care about the spiritual health and political future of our country. From the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book Fall from Grace written by Michael D'Antonio and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1989 to great acclaim, D'Antonio immersed himself in the culture of "born-again" America" for two years, travelling the country and interviewing members of fundamentalist communities. He has written a compelling book that documents not just the well-known leaders of the movement, but the lives of the followers as well. "A balanced and thought-provoking analysis of the rise and fall of America's Christian Right. . . . D'Antonio interviews members of Houston's Second Baptist Church, a born-again couple on Long Island, doctors at Oral Roberts University Medical Center, and even Christians who fight communism in Honduras, with the intent not to necessarily criticize but to explain what drives people . . . into an extremist adherence to tasteless "televangelism." D'Antonio weaves into his coverage . . . summaries of the scandals that have rocked the ministries of the Bakkers, Jimmy Swaggart, and other fraudulent media money grubbers, but he also does a good job of describing the political links between the Fundamentalists and the Republican party.. . . D'Antonio legitimately documents . . . the reasons why many Americans feel a void in their ever-more-modern, high-tech-oriented lives."--Martin Brady, Booklist
Download or read book The End of White Christian America written by Robert P. Jones and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The founder and CEO of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and columnist for the Atlantic describes how white Protestant Christians have declined in influence and power since the 1990s and explores the effect this has had on America, "--NoveList.
Download or read book The Power Worshippers written by Katherine Stewart and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For readers of Democracy in Chains and Dark Money, a revelatory investigation of the Religious Right's rise to political power. For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America's religious nationalists aren't just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy. Stewart pulls back the curtain on the inner workings and leading personalities of a movement that has turned religion into a tool for domination. She exposes a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances and united not by any central command but by a shared, anti-democratic vision and a common will to power. She follows the money that fuels this movement, tracing much of it to a cadre of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors and family foundations. She shows that today's Christian nationalism is the fruit of a longstanding antidemocratic, reactionary strain of American thought that draws on some of the most troubling episodes in America's past. It forms common cause with a globe-spanning movement that seeks to destroy liberal democracy and replace it with nationalist, theocratic and autocratic forms of government around the world. Religious nationalism is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals. The Power Worshippers is a brilliantly reported book of warning and a wake-up call. Stewart's probing examination demands that Christian nationalism be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and our democratic freedoms.
Download or read book If God Meant to Interfere written by Christopher Douglas and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-12 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, trained as we were to think that religions waned as societies became modern. In If God Meant to Interfere, Christopher Douglas shows that American writers struggled to understand and respond to this new social and political force. Religiously inflected literature since the 1970s must be understood in the context of this unforeseen resurgence of conservative Christianity, he argues, a resurgence that realigned the literary and cultural fields. Among the writers Douglas considers are Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, N. Scott Momaday, Gloria Anzaldúa, Philip Roth, Carl Sagan, and Dan Brown. Their fictions engaged a wide range of topics: religious conspiracies, faith and wonder, slavery and imperialism, evolution and extraterrestrial contact, alternate histories and ancestral spiritualities. But this is only part of the story. Liberal-leaning literary writers responding to the resurgence were sometimes confused by the Christian Right’s strange entanglement with the contemporary paradigms of multiculturalism and postmodernism —leading to complex emergent phenomena that Douglas terms "Christian multiculturalism" and "Christian postmodernism." Ultimately, If God Meant to Interfere shows the value of listening to our literature for its sometimes subterranean attention to the religious and social upheavals going on around it.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Christian Ireland written by Crawford Gribben and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ireland has long been regarded as a 'land of saints and scholars'. Yet the Irish experience of Christianity has never been simple or uncomplicated. The Rise and Fall of Christian Ireland describes the emergence, long dominance, sudden division, and recent decline of Ireland's most important religion, as a way of telling the history of the island and its peoples. Throughout its long history, Christianity in Ireland has lurched from crisis to crisis. Surviving the hostility of earlier religious cultures and the depredations of Vikings, evolving in the face of Gregorian reformation in the 11th and 12th centuries and more radical protestant renewal from the 16th century, Christianity has shaped in foundational ways how the Irish have understood themselves and their place in the world. And the Irish have shaped Christianity, too. Their churches have staffed some of the religion's most important institutions and developed some of its most popular ideas. But the Irish church, like the island, is divided. After 1922, a border marked out two jurisdictions with competing religious politics. The southern state turned to the Catholic church to shape its social mores, until it emerged from an experience of sudden-onset secularization to become one of the most progressive nations in Europe. The northern state moved more slowly beyond the protestant culture of its principal institutions, but in a similar direction of travel. In 2021, fifteen hundred years on from the birth of Saint Columba, Christian Ireland appears to be vanishing. But its critics need not relax any more than believers ought to despair. After the failure of several varieties of religious nationalism, what looks like irredeemable failure might actually be a second chance. In the ruins of the church, new Columbas and Patricks shape the rise of another Christian Ireland.
Download or read book White Too Long written by Robert P. Jones and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "WHITE TOO LONG draws on history, statistics, and memoir to urge that white Christians reckon with the racism of the past and the amnesia of the present to restore a Christian identity free of the taint of white supremacy"--
Download or read book God s Own Party written by Daniel K. Williams and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-07-12 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In God's Own Party, Daniel K. Williams presents the first comprehensive history of the Christian Right, uncovering how evangelicals came to see the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could reclaim America as a Christian nation.
Download or read book Bad Faith written by Randall Balmer and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A surprising and disturbing origin story There is a commonly accepted story about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: with righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The problem is this story simply isn’t true. Largely ambivalent about abortion until the late 1970s, evangelical leaders were first mobilized not by Roe v. Wade but by Green v. Connally, a lesser-known court decision in 1971 that threatened the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory institutions—of which there were several in the world of Christian education at the time. When the most notorious of these schools, Bob Jones University, had its tax-exempt status revoked in 1976, evangelicalism was galvanized as a political force and brought into the fold of the Republican Party. Only later, when a more palatable issue was needed to cover for what was becoming an increasingly unpopular position following the civil rights era, was the moral crusade against abortion made the central issue of the movement now known as the Religious Right. In this greatly expanded argument from his 2014 Politico article “The Real Origins of the Religious Right,” Randall Balmer guides the reader along the convoluted historical trajectory that began with American evangelicalism as a progressive force opposed to slavery, then later an isolated apolitical movement in the mid-twentieth century, all the way through the 2016 election in which 81 percent of white evangelicals coalesced around Donald Trump for president. The pivotal point, Balmer shows, was the period in the late 1970s when American evangelicals turned against Jimmy Carter—despite his being one of their own, a professed “born-again” Christian—in favor of the Republican Party, which found it could win their loyalty through the espousal of a single issue. With the implications of this alliance still unfolding, Balmer’s account uncovers the roots of evangelical watchwords like “religious freedom” and “family values” while getting to the truth of how this movement began—explaining, in part, what it has become.
Download or read book The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics written by Andrew R. Lewis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explains how abortion politics influenced a fundamental shift in conservative Christian politics, teaching conservatives to embrace rights arguments.
Download or read book American Fascists written by Chris Hedges and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the celebrated author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" comes a startling expos of the political ambitions of the Christian Right--a clarion call for everyone who cares about freedom.
Download or read book Stations of the Cross written by Paul Apostolidis and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2000-06-02 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the 1970s, American society has provided especially fertile ground for the growth of the Christian right and its influence on both political and cultural discourse. In Stations of the Cross political theorist Paul Apostolidis shows how a critical component of this movement’s popular culture—evangelical conservative radio—interacts with the current U.S. political economy. By examining in particular James Dobson’s enormously influential program, Focus on the Family—its messages, politics, and effects—Apostolidis reveals the complex nature of contemporary conservative religious culture. Public ideology and institutional tendencies clash, the author argues, in the restructuring of the welfare state, the financing of the electoral system, and the backlash against women and minorities. These frictions are nowhere more apparent than on Christian right radio. Reinvigorating the intellectual tradition of the Frankfurt School, Apostolidis shows how ideas derived from early critical theory—in particular that of Theodor W. Adorno—can illuminate the political and social dynamics of this aspect of contemporary American culture. He uses and reworks Adorno’s theories to interpret the nationally broadcast Focus on the Family, revealing how the cultural discourse of the Christian right resonates with recent structural transformations in the American political economy. Apostolidis shows that the antidote to the Christian right’s marriage of religious and market fundamentalism lies not in a reinvocation of liberal fundamentals, but rather depends on a patient cultivation of the affinities between religion’s utopian impulses and radical, democratic challenges to the present political-economic order. Mixing critical theory with detailed analysis, Stations of the Cross provides a needed contribution to sociopolitical studies of mass movements and will attract readers in sociology, political science, philosophy, and history.
