John W. Compton
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- June 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190069186
- eISBN:
- 9780190069216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190069186.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter examines the fate of liberal and moderate evangelicals from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s. It argues that moderate evangelicals—an ascendant force in the 1970s—were marginalized ...
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This chapter examines the fate of liberal and moderate evangelicals from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s. It argues that moderate evangelicals—an ascendant force in the 1970s—were marginalized less by the rise of so-called “values” issues than by economic anxieties and a broader white reaction against federal civil rights initiatives. That white evangelicals drifted to the political Right for essentially secular reasons—and often in the face of counterpressures from prominent evangelical leaders and institutions—provides further confirmation of religion’s limited ability to shape political behavior in an age of religious autonomy. In short, it is the weakness of evangelical institutions, not their strength, that best explains why the term “conservative evangelical” has come to seem redundant.Less
This chapter examines the fate of liberal and moderate evangelicals from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s. It argues that moderate evangelicals—an ascendant force in the 1970s—were marginalized less by the rise of so-called “values” issues than by economic anxieties and a broader white reaction against federal civil rights initiatives. That white evangelicals drifted to the political Right for essentially secular reasons—and often in the face of counterpressures from prominent evangelical leaders and institutions—provides further confirmation of religion’s limited ability to shape political behavior in an age of religious autonomy. In short, it is the weakness of evangelical institutions, not their strength, that best explains why the term “conservative evangelical” has come to seem redundant.
James R. Skillen
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197500699
- eISBN:
- 9780197500729
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197500699.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
The broader political story of the Sagebrush Rebellion is less about roads or grazing AUMs; it is about how a regional challenge to federal authority in the West aligned with challenges from both ...
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The broader political story of the Sagebrush Rebellion is less about roads or grazing AUMs; it is about how a regional challenge to federal authority in the West aligned with challenges from both business interests and religious conservatives in the New Right. Like the sagebrush rebels, conservative business and religious leaders were fighting back against the federal government, which had expanded its regulatory footprint dramatically in the rights revolution and environmental movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Together they forged a new coalition aimed at bringing conservatives to office and slashing the federal government’s regulatory power. And together they built a conservative infrastructure that would support future sagebrush rebellions and that eventually made opposition to federal land authority part of the conservative platform.Less
The broader political story of the Sagebrush Rebellion is less about roads or grazing AUMs; it is about how a regional challenge to federal authority in the West aligned with challenges from both business interests and religious conservatives in the New Right. Like the sagebrush rebels, conservative business and religious leaders were fighting back against the federal government, which had expanded its regulatory footprint dramatically in the rights revolution and environmental movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Together they forged a new coalition aimed at bringing conservatives to office and slashing the federal government’s regulatory power. And together they built a conservative infrastructure that would support future sagebrush rebellions and that eventually made opposition to federal land authority part of the conservative platform.
