The Politics of Evangelical Identity
Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5707706 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel Bennett (0000-0001-5354-9118, Eastern Kentucky University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 590-591 |
| Publication date | 2015-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Church and State (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-969X • E-ISSN: 2040-4867 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jcs/csv058 |
| OpenAlex | W2105669876 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
In the catalog of research on religion and politics, evangelical Christians are well represented. A plethora of studies examining voting behavior, interest group mobilization, and more have investigated evangelicals' influence in the political process. These studies generally portray evangelicals as a key force in conservative politics, a characterization especially true in the United States, where evangelicals have been consistently linked to the Republican Party for decades. Scholars tend to view the relationship between evangelicals and political conservatism in two major ways. One approach sees evangelicals as under the control of political elites, who manufacture and manipulate shared belief systems in order to tap into evangelicals' socially conservative views. Another approach sees authenticity in this relationship, viewing evangelicals' theologically driven moral worldviews as naturally attracted to political conservatism. In The Politics of Evangelical Identity, sociologist Lydia Bean offers a thoughtful alternative to these dominant paradigms: “Political forces,” she argues, “have actually reshaped the content of American evangelical identity at the level of everyday religious practice, not just at the level of top-down political mobilization” (p. 5). Through participant observation at four congregations in Buffalo, New York, and Hamilton, Ontario, Bean shows that the relationship between American evangelicals and conservative politics is not imposed from above nor simply a byproduct of consistent moral worldviews but rather is subtly shaped as it is “woven into the fabric of everyday religious life” (p. 15). The Canadian churches, on the other hand, do not connect political and religious identity in the same ways.
Aesthetics · Christian right · Conservatism · Identity (music) · Political science · Politics · Politics of the United States · Sociology · Voting · Voting behavior · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2022 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |