Conservative Chick? Conservative Culture Warriors at War

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 738-765
Author(s):  
NATHAN SAUNDERS
Keyword(s):  
Comic Book ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
New Right ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Jerry Falwell ◽  
Social Conservatism ◽  
Christian Nation ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
Politically Active ◽  
Conservative Protestants

The American New Right that grew to prominence during the second half of the twentieth century consists of three major ideological strands – traditionalism, libertarianism, and anticommunism. The New Christian Right (NCR) that rose to prominence in the 1970s fell within the traditionalist camp. At the same time, not all theological conservatives or social traditionalists joined the NCR. The work of comic book artist Jack Chick demonstrates the phenomenon of opposition to the NCR among some theological and social conservatives. Beginning in the early 1960s, Chick published tracts and comic books that espoused extreme social conservatism while at the same time opposing government enforcement of social norms. He frequently criticized politically active or well-connected preachers such as Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham and opposed prayer in schools. Chick, along with many other fundamentalists, opposed the NCR because it involved cooperation with Roman Catholics. For Chick, doctrinal purity is more important than having a “Christian” nation. This essay concludes by noting how, as evangelicals lose ground in key battles of the culture wars, there are signs that Chick's antipolitics is gaining ground among conservative Protestants.

Parenting and Politics: The Personal and the Political in the Evangelical Family Values Movement

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
Hilde Løvdal Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Family Values ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
Cultural Activism ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Christian Family ◽  
Conservative Protestants

Today, evangelical Christians in the U.S. are known for their passion for the so-called traditional family and engagement in political and cultural battles over children and child rearing. That has not always been the case. This article examines how parenting became a cultural and political battleground for evangelicals in the last decades of the 20th century. Conservative Protestants have engaged with politics and culture in the past. They supported the Prohibition movement; they opposed Darwin’s theory of evolution; they worried about the decadent culture of the 1920s. In the late 1900s, however, child rearing and parenting became a catch-all framework for all their concerns. Parenting took on new, profound meaning. Preachers like Billy Graham would reject his former notions that he was called to preach, saying he was first and foremost called to father. Evangelical Christian family experts like James Dobson and Larry Christenson linked parenting to social order. Family experts guided evangelicals in their political and cultural activism, telling them that the personal is political and that political issues can be solved one family at a time.

scholarly journals Political philosophy and Australian far-right media: A critical discourse analysis of The Unshackled and XYZ

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110086
Author(s):  
Imogen Richards ◽  
Maria Rae ◽  
Matteo Vergani ◽  
Callum Jones
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Far Right ◽  
News Websites ◽  
Conservative Revolution ◽  
Social Conservatism ◽  
European New Right

A 21st-century growth in prevalence of extreme right-wing nationalism and social conservatism in Australia, Europe, and America, in certain respects belies the positive impacts of online, new, and alternative forms of global media. Cross-national forms of ‘far-right activism’ are unconfined to their host nations; individuals and organisations campaign on the basis of ethno-cultural separatism, while capitalising on internet-based affordances for communication and ideological cross-fertilisation. Right-wing revolutionary ideas disseminated in this media, to this end, embody politico-cultural aims that can only be understood with attention to their philosophical underpinnings. Drawing on a dataset of articles from the pseudo-news websites, XYZ and The Unshackled, this paper investigates the representation of different rightist political philosophical traditions in contemporary Australia-based far-right media. A critical discourse and content analysis reveal XYZ and TU’s engagement with various traditions, from Nietzsche and the Conservative Revolution, to the European New Right and neo-Nazism.

Freedom in the Congregation? Culture Wars, Individual Rights, and National Churches in Switzerland (1848–1907)

2020 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-349
Author(s):  
Sarah Scholl
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Church Reform ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
History Of ◽  
Freedom Of Belief ◽  
New Community ◽  
Roman Catholics ◽  
Subsequent Rise

AbstractThis paper aims to examine political, ecclesiastic, and theological changes in Switzerland during the time of the nineteenth-century culture wars. It analyzes the reforms of the churches undertaken during that period in correlation with the evolution of various social and cultural elements, in particular the ever-greater confessional diversity within the territory and the demand for religious freedom. After an initial general accounting of the history of Swiss institutions (state, Catholic, and Protestant national churches), the article explores an example of a liberal church reform that took place in Geneva in 1873: the creation of a Catholic Church defined simultaneously as Christian, national, liberal, and related to the German Old Catholic movement. It fashioned a new community in keeping with the idea that freedom of conscience should be implemented within the church, thereby meeting strong resistance from Roman Catholics. The article closes with a return to the broader Swiss context, arguing that freedom of belief and of worship was finally enshrined in the 1874 Swiss constitution as a result of the growing divisions among Christians over the compatibility of liberal values with Christian theology and the subsequent rise of a new confessionalism.

Vom protestantischen „Beichtvater“ zum Verhaltenstherapeuten. Überzeugungsstrategien und Kommunikationsmuster bei Fundamentalisten und New Evangelicals (ca. 1920–1970)

2019 ◽  
Vol 309 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-111
Author(s):  
Stefanie H. Coché
Keyword(s):  
New Right ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Charles Fuller ◽  
Billy Graham

Zusammenfassung Die neuere Forschung hat in den letzten Jahren bemängelt, dass der Fokus auf den Kalten Krieg lange die Brüche in der amerikanischen Nachkriegsgesellschaft verschleiert habe. Während dem Aufstieg der New Right vor den 1980er Jahren zuletzt mehr Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet wurde, bleibt der genuin religiöse Anteil der Evangelikalen hieran vor ihrem politischen Engagement in der moral majority weitestgehend im Dunkeln. Dieser Aufsatz vertritt die These, dass die Eroberung des modernen Alltags als religiöses Betätigungsfeld ein wesentlicher Faktor für den verblüffenden Erfolg Billy Grahams und der sich um ihn herum formierenden New Evangelicals war. Graham gelang eine religiöse Aneignung neuer, „moderner“ Themen, indem er die Regeln des konservativen protestantischen Diskurses maßgeblich veränderte. Während sein unmittelbarer Vorgänger Charles Fuller gleichsam als protestantischer „Beichtvater“ agierte, nahm Billy Graham die Rolle eines „Verhaltenstherapeuten“ ein. Auf diese Weise lotste er eine rückwärtsgewandte religiöse Tradition, die in der Zwischenkriegszeit bereits zu einer Nischenexistenz verdammt gewesen zu sein schien, zurück in den Mainstream und trug damit wesentlich zum politischen, kulturellen und gesellschaftlichen Einfluss der Evangelikalen in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in den USA bei. Diesem im westlichen Vergleich außergewöhnlichen und kontrasäkularen Wandel konservativer protestantischer Religiosität widmet sich der Artikel, indem er die jeweilige diskursive Präsentation und die inhaltlichen Schwerpunkte der Fundamentalisten und New Evangelicals analysiert. Damit richtet er den Blick von der Religion auf die Moderne und löst einen in den letzten Jahren mehrfach geforderten Perspektivwechsel ein.

From “Jungles of Terror” to “God Will Begin a Healing in This City”: Billy Graham and Evangelicals on Cities and Suburbs

2020 ◽  
pp. 009614422094004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
White Flight ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Structural Responses ◽  
Limited Power ◽  
Conservative Protestants

Evangelist Billy Graham spoke to millions in the postwar era when suburban populations swelled and many white Americans, including conservative Protestants, left cities for suburbs. Adding to research on white flight and the suburbanization of religious groups, this study of Graham’s consistent approach to cities and suburbs over six decades demonstrates how conservative Protestants’ individualistic approach to social and spiritual ills contributed to their negative view of cities and justified settling in suburban locations. Graham discussed numerous urban problems and suggested solutions should begin with individual spiritual renewal. Graham proclaimed heaven as the ultimate city and did not encourage listeners to stay in cities or challenge white flight. As a respected pastor and leader, Graham’s messages highlight how evangelicals could consider cities in need of spiritual renewal but not require structural responses or living in cities as well as the limited power evangelical religious leaders have regarding contentious social issues.

scholarly journals Homosexuality, Politics and Pentecostal Nationalism in Zambia

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriaan van Klinken
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Local Configuration ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Christian Nation ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Alternative Reading

Building upon debates about the politics of nationalism and sexuality in post-colonial Africa, this article highlights the role of religion in shaping nationalist ideologies that seek to regulate homosexuality. It specifically focuses on Pentecostal Christianity in Zambia, where the constitutional declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation has given rise to a form of ‘Pentecostal nationalism’ in which homosexuality is considered to be a threat to the purity of the nation and is associated with the Devil. The article offers an analysis of recent Zambian public debates about homosexuality, focusing on the ways in which the ‘Christian nation’ argument is deployed, primarily in a discourse of anti-homonationalism, but also by a few recent dissident voices. The latter prevent Zambia, and Christianity, from accruing a monolithic depiction as homophobic. Showing that the Zambian case presents a mobilisation against homosexuality that is profoundly shaped by the local configuration in which Christianity defines national identity – and in which Pentecostal-Christian moral concerns and theo-political imaginations shape public debates and politics – the article nuances arguments that explain African controversies regarding homosexuality in terms of exported American culture wars, proposing an alternative reading of these controversies as emerging from conflicting visions of modernity in Africa.1

The New Right in Central Europe I: Czechoslovakia

1988 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Scruton
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
New Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Market Theory ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Social Conservatism ◽  
The Impact

‘The New Right’, as it has come to be known, derives from at least two major intellectual sources, free market theory and social conservatism. The question how far these are compatible is frequently raised. The aim of this two-part article is to explore the impact of ‘New Right’ thinking in East Central Europe (specifically in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary) in order to show that, in the conditions of ‘real socialism’, free market and social conservative ideas seem to arise naturally from the same root conceptions. The first part deals with Czechoslovakia-specifically with the thought of Patocka, Have1 and Bratinka, and with the conservative wing of the Charter movement. It argues that, while many writers would specifically reject labels like ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’, the actual content of their thought is very close to that of the New Right in the western hemisphere. In particular, the call for a ‘depoliticization’ of society, for responsible accounting, and for a lived historical identity which will be both national and European, are indistinguishable from long-standing themes of social conservatism.

Religion and…

Worldview ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-12
Author(s):  
Richard John Neuhaus
Keyword(s):  
American Politics ◽  
New Right ◽  
American Religion ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Visible Part ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Jerry Falwell

The question is asked whether Moral Majority is a threat or a challenge. The answer, I believe, is that it is both. The less intelligently we respond to the challenge, the greater is the threat.The concern is about a cluster of organizations and movements representing an alliance between religion and the New Right in American politics. Moral Majority and its leader, Jerry Falwell, are simply the most visible part of the phenomenon. I am persuaded that the religious New Right represents a deep and long-term change in American religion, culture, and politics. Moral Majority and other organizations may not be around five years from now, but the change they represent will be with us for a long time.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document