Jeffrey Rudolph has an interesting article that sheds some light on this religious segment and walks us through the various groupings that make them up and their relative strengths and goals.
He says that twenty-six percent of the US population is affiliated with the Evangelical Protestant tradition but adds:
It is useful to distinguish between two broad groups of evangelicals: (i) moderate evangelicals who concede that there is more than one legitimate way to worship and serve Christ; (ii) traditional evangelicals—which include those identified as fundamentalists—who come closest to the “Christian Right” discussed in the media. Traditional evangelicals, approximately 12 percent of the U.S. population, are overwhelmingly Republican, openly hostile to democratic pluralism, and promote policies that deny the civil rights of others (such as gays and Muslims).
He also says that contrary to popular belief, it was not the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that galvanized the religious right into heightened political activity but the revocation by the IRS in 1976 of Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status. The abortion issue was added later as an additional rallying cry.
Until that time, the religious right was indifferent to economic issues. But wealthy business interests realized that a strong anti-abortion stand might bring into the movement those who were not enthusiastic about tax cuts or business deregulation. This is what enabled wealthy Republican interests to attract members of the poor, working, and middle class to support them, even though it goes against their own economic interests.
There is nothing new about this. Back when the Dixiecrats ran the Southern states, the rallying cry was keep the n*ggers in line. Again, poor and lower middle class Caucasians voted for the Dixiecrats and against their economic interests.
He also says that contrary to popular belief, it was not the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that galvanized the religious right into heightened political activity but the revocation by the IRS in 1976 of Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status.
Apparently Rudolph wasn’t around or wasn’t paying attention before RvW. US hyperchristians first became seriously alienated from US political culture when the latter started taking civil rights seriously; the split was carefully and successfully cultivated by a group of hardcore right-wing political operators, working with Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign mailing lists.
Shalom Mano,
I’ve come to believe that the moniker Religious Right distracts us from the real dangers because the label implies that there is a Religious Left that we are OK with.
The terms I find more powerful are Religious Wrong and Religious Light, the former more clearly embracing all of those, regardless of political affiliation, who wish to impose their particular superstitions on the rest of us and the latter marking those who see their religious belief as more of a social comfort and disregard the clearly silly aspects of literal tenets and, by doing so, provide cover for the Religious Wrong.
B’shalom,
Jeff