Bad faith : race and the rise of the religious right / Randall Balmer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Balmer, Randall Herbert, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religious right--United States--History.

Religious right.

Evangelicalism--Political aspects--United States--History.

Evangelicalism.

Abortion--Political aspects--United States--History.

Abortion.

Racism--United States--Religious aspects.

Racism.

Abortion--Political aspects.

Evangelicalism--Political aspects.

Racism--Religious aspects.

History.

United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xix, 120 pages ; 19 cm

Place of Publication:

Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021.

Summary:

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. 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.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. One Evangelicalism before the Religious Right

1. The Emergence of Progressive Evangelicalism

2. The Diversion of Dispensationalism

3. The Making of the Evangelical Subculture

4. The Chicago Declaration and Jimmy Carter

pt. Two The Abortion Myth and the Rise of the Religious Right

5. The Abortion Myth

6. What Really Happened

7. What about Abortion?

pt. Three So What?

8. The 1980 Presidential Election

9. Why the Abortion Myth Matters.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780802879349

0802879349

OCLC:

1228911799

Publisher Number:

99988701692