We Gather Together

The modern Religious Right has been a force in American politics for the last forty years and, as such, has attracted considerable interest among political historians. In fact, the politics of it all – specific leaders, laws, court decisions, and the like—has dominated the historiography. In the majority view, the odd coalition that made up the Religious Right, primarily conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants, found common cause reacting to the cultural secularism of the 1960s and 1970s. Abortion, feminism, the sexual revolution, the removal of prayer from schools, and gay and lesbian rights, among other issues, all provided the foundation for the movement’s cohesiveness. In this present volume, independent scholar Neil Young recasts the debate on the Religious Right’s genesis and development. Focusing as much on the theological roots of the various faith commodities that participated in it as on the political developments that challenged them, Young argues that the story of the Religious Right was not simple. Its roots are deeper and its coalition broader and less unified than is usually thought. No monolith, the Religious Right has always been a dynamic and difficult interfaith dialogue, wrestling with disparate faiths and historical traditions but always at its core driven by theology.

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