Framing the Christian Right
How Progressives and Post-War Liberals Constructed the Religious Right
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5707935 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J A Shield, John A Shields (0000-0002-9888-7556, Oxford University Press (United Kingdom), corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 635-655 |
| Publication date | 2011-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| 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/csr027 |
| OpenAlex | W2142266371 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
The Christian Right is the most anticipated social movement in American history. Decades before Catholics and conservative evangelicals ended centuries of antagonism by cooperating on social issues, an elite class of Progressive-era intellectuals and journalists were describing what it regarded as the deep and dangerous affinities between Catholics and evangelicals. Catholic opposition to eugenics and the evangelical crusade against teaching evolution in public schools helped persuade Progressives that religious orthodoxy—rather than any particular theological tradition—was a grave threat to science, reason, and social progress. These thinkers warned darkly that both groups were natural allies because they shared an unqualified allegiance to an external and unscientific authority in the pope and an inerrant Bible. Ignorance and primal bigotries were further assumed to shape the political opinions of Catholics and evangelicals. As conflicts over Darwinism faded, it appeared that Progressive-era fears might be laid to rest. Catholic and evangelical support for McCarthyism after the Second World War, however, once again excited alarm in academic and elite journalistic circles. Prominent postwar liberals, including Martin Seymour Lipset, Richard Hofstadter, and David Riesman, revived the Progressive critique of Christian orthodoxy by positing many of the same assumptions about the perilous effects of religious orthodoxy on democratic citizenship. Unlike their Progressive heirs, though, postwar thinkers did not merely believe that Catholics and
Christian right · Elite · Framing (construction) · Orthodoxy · Political science · Politics · Social Darwinism · Sociology · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Catholicism and Religious Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |