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.

Explains how abortion politics influenced a fundamental shift in conservative Christian politics, teaching conservatives to embrace rights arguments.

A study of Christian conservative religious and political beliefs as aspects of constructing and maintaining a world view. Considering a series of spheres from the self to the family, the economy, the polity and the world, analyzes published writings by a diversity of people adhering to the movement to reveal the overarching structure of the reality they inhabit. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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.

From the first rumblings of the Moral Majority over twenty years ago, the Christian Right has been marshalling its forces and maneuvering its troops in an effort to re-shape the landscape of American politics. It has fascinated social scientists and journalists as the first right-wing social movement in postwar America to achieve significant political and popular support, and it has repeatedly defied those who would step up to write its obituary. In 2000, while many touted the demise of the Christian Coalition, the broader undercurrents of the movement were instrumental in helping George W. Bush win the GOP nomination and the White House. Bush repaid that swell of support by choosing Senator John Ashcroft, once the movement's favored presidential candidate, as attorney general. The Christian Right in American Politics, under the direction of three of the nation's leading scholars in the field of religion and politics, recognizing the movement as a force still to be reckoned with, undertakes the important task of making an historical analysis of the Christian Right in state politics during its heyday, 1980 to the millennium. Its twelve chapters, written by outstanding scholars, review the impact and influence of the Christian Right in those states where it has had its most significant presence: South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Colorado, California, Maine, and Oregon and Washington. Since 1980, scholars have learned a good deal about the social characteristics, religious doctrine, and political beliefs of activists in and supporters of the Christian Right in these states, and each contribution is based on rigorous, dispassionate scholarship. The writers explore the gains and losses of the movement as it attempts to re-shape political landscapes. More precisely, they provide in-depth descriptions of the resources, organizations, and the group ecologies in which the Christian Right operates-the distinct elements that drove the movement forward. As the editors state, "the Christian Right has been engaged in a long and torturous 'march toward the millennium,' from outsider status into the thick of American politics." Those formative years, 1980-2000, are essential for any understanding of this uniquely American social movement. This rigorous analysis over many states and many elections provides the clearest picture yet of the goals, tactics, and hopes of the Christian Right in America.

The inspiration for the documentary God & Country 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.

They have money, influence, power-and they turn out to vote. They are credited with delivering a significant part of the Republicans' stunning 1994 electoral success, foreshadowed their status as major players in the elections of 1996. "They" are groups like the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and the religious right. But are they the greatest threat to liberty since Hitler or the last defenders of religious freedom and family values in America? In this revised and updated second edition of Onward Christian Soldiers Clyde Wilcox tells us who they are, what their history has been in twentieth-century American politics, and how they might organize themselves for future political effectiveness. He tackles the sticky political dilemma of the proper role of religious groups in American politics and government while showing how the contemporary religious right does-and does not-fit into that context.

They have money, influence, power - and they turn out to vote. "They" are groups like Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America (all parts of the Christian Right. But, are they a serious threat to religious liberty, bent on creating a theocratic state, or the last defenders of religion and family values in America). Bringing the story of the religious right up to the Obama administration, this revised fourth edition explores the history of the movement in twentieth and early twenty-first century American politics. The authors review the expansion of the Christian Right through George W. Bush's second administration and evaluate how the religious right fared in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Although figureheads of the religious right remain in the news, their power in Washington may be declining, and the authors consider the fate of the religious right under the Obama administration. Examining how the religious right both does and does not fit into the proper role of religious groups in American politics, Onward Christian Soldiers? is an essential addition to the Dilemmas in American Politics series.

This book is about the role of the Christian Right in the US foreign policy decision making process. It reveals that the Christian Right has long been fascinated with some international issues in general and US foreign policy in particular. The interest of the movement in international issues increased markedly during the George W. Bush administration (2000–2009). During this period, the movement successfully widened its activism from domestic social conservative issues to foreign policy issues by participating in, articulating and lobbying for its religious version of American foreign policy. In assessing the role of the Christian Right in US foreign policy making, this dissertation examines aspects of US foreign policy, namely Israel, international religious freedom and global humanitarianism. Based on these three aspects, the Christian Right is seen as skilled in framing and defining issues. The Christian Right seems effective in selecting and prioritizing international issues that have a reasonable chance of being picked up on by foreign policy decision makers, especially in Congress. Moreover, the Christian Right has shown its maturity in seeking engagement and cooperation with other organizations, regardless of whether they are secular or religious, to advance its international goals. Finally, in pursuing and conveying its international agenda, the Christian Right has adopted a more moderate and mundane approach. Instead of using its traditional religious rhetoric, the Christian Right has successfully projected its foreign policy preferences into the conventional realist discourse of American foreign policy that was largely based on the objective of national interest and national security.

Focusing on groups, such as the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and the religious right, this book tells us who they are, what their history has been in twentieth-century American politics, and how they might organize themselves for future political effectiveness.