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Conclusion: New Perspectives on American Evangelicalism
- University of Wisconsin Press
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Conclusion New Perspectives on American Evangelicalism The partisan mobilization of conservative Protestants constitutes one of the most remarkable political developments since World War II and the clearest case of political realignment during the past forty years.1 In providing a historical perspective on this process, this book suggests some revisions to common assumptions about resurgent neo-fundamentalism. In particular, it questions the notion that the New Christian Right’s political ideology and cultural appeal centered mainly on moral traditionalism and theological orthodoxy ; that evangelicals would naturally ally themselves with political conservatism ; and that the political mobilization of evangelicals was primarily the result of an adversarial backlash against the sociocultural and political turmoil of the 1960s. In contrast, it depicts a diverse movement whose cultural resonance combined anti-establishmentarian impulses with the affirmation of the fundamentals of liberal culture; whose political identities were often rooted in intramovement realignments and the marginalizing of dissident groups; and whose ideologies and institutions were molded in the process of interacting with and borrowing from the insurgencies of the 1960s. Drawing upon resource mobilization theory and subcultural identity theory, the findings show, first of all, that the ability to combine an insurgent message with sociocultural integration is a crucial factor in the Christian Right’s organizational strength, cultural attractiveness, and political efficacy. Its substance is located less in traditional morality and theological orthodoxy than in the merger of pietism with social activism, subcultural separatism with a new emphasis on ecumenism, rigid Biblicism with therapeutic conversionism, and moral militancy with the active embrace of consumer culture. Hence, the single-issue moralistic 151 politics favored by the New Christian Right were not only indicative of hardline normative intransigence; they were also part and parcel of the domestication of evangelicalism. Reflecting an ecumenical, postindustrial mindset that reoriented religious conflict along liberal-orthodox lines, morality politics shifted the emphasis from narrow doctrinalism, racism, and anti-Catholicism toward broad transdenominational moral campaigning. Likewise, the conservatives’ religious dogmatism, while suggesting a return to biblical orthodoxy, in effect translated a religious drama based on traditional Protestant concepts of Christocentrism , salvation through faith, and evangelical mysticism into a quick religious fix that affirmed the dynamic, flexible, entrepreneurial, and self-realizing market subject. With a nod to Max Weber one might argue that this constituted a shift from “inner-worldly asceticism” to “other-worldly hedonism.” Moreover, although conservatives continued to preach moral self-discipline, any remaining disquiet about unfettered capitalism gave way to an explicit embrace of the system of free enterprise and the consumerist underpinnings of postwar culture. While the Christian Right’s “moralistic materialism” rhetorically recaptured the moral radicalism and emancipatory aspirations of the nineteenth-century producer-class ideology, it helped reconcile them with the libertarian cult of self-indulgence required by consumer capitalism. Second, this study argues that deducing a pre-existing conservative partisan orientation within evangelicalism from the fact of its later dominance obscures the political diversity within the movement. Such an a priori assumption deflects attention from the internal political battles and maneuvers that led to the preponderance of a rightwing political identity, and neglects the potential that existed for different political alignments. In contrast to common perceptions of evangelical Protestantism as a cultural and political monolith, the rightwing political affiliation of evangelicals was contingent upon complex movement dynamics, interactions with social and cultural trends within Cold War society, and external coalition building. Indeed, evangelical political traditions in many ways ran counter to rightwing politics. As indicated above, when the movement entered the political stage with renewed vigor in the 1960s and 1970s, a generation of young, college-trained evangelical leaders called for a new commitment to fighting poverty, oppression, and social injustice. They attacked capitalism, civil religion, militarism, racism, and imperialism. Likewise, the history of the evangelical vote sheds doubt on the notion that social conservatism necessarily translated into support for conservative economic policies. Although by the 1980s evangelicals had become the most reliable constituency for the Republican party, significant parts of the movement remained critical of the iniquities of liberal capitalism, embraced pacifist sentiments, and adhered to strict church-state separationism. 152 Conclusion E [3.141.27.142] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 18:56 GMT) The rise of the New Christian Right thus needs to be understood in the context of an internal backlash. As rightwing evangelicals realized, building an effective evangelical voting bloc within the Republican party required the containment of left and liberal impulses. Indeed, the newly politicized conservatives emerged victorious only after drawn-out...