“To Crush the Serpent”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
The Body ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
Major Transformation ◽  
Reagan Era

This chapter draws on Baldwin’s final major essay, “To Crush the Serpent” (1987), to examine the rise of the religious Right and Baldwin’s alternative vision of morality. In the 1980s, Baldwin recognized, a major transformation had occurred in the sociopolitical functions of religion. His critique adapted accordingly, focusing on the ways in which religion (particularly evangelical Christianity) had morphed into a movement deeply enmeshed with mass media, conservative politics, and capitalism. The new movement was often characterized as the “Religious Right” or the “Moral Majority” and was central to both Reagan’s political coalition as well as the broader culture wars. In “To Crush the Serpent” Baldwin narrows in on the definitions and uses of the sinner or transgressor in the context of Reagan-era obsessions with the body and sexuality.

scholarly journals “To Crush the Serpent”: James Baldwin, the Religious Right, and the Moral Minority

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-48
Author(s):  
Joseph Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Major Transformation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Reagan Era

In the 1980s, James Baldwin recognized that a major transformation had occurred in the socio-political functions of religion. His critique adapted accordingly, focusing on the ways in which religion—particularly white evangelical Christianity—had morphed into a movement deeply enmeshed with mass media, conservativepolitics, and late capitalism. Religion in the Reagan era was leveraged, sold, and consumed in ways never before seen, from charismatic televangelists, to Christian-themed amusement parks, to mega-churches. The new movement was often characterized as the “religious right” or the “Moral Majority” and was central to both Reagan’s political coalition as well as the broader culture wars. For Baldwin, this development had wide-ranging ramifications for society and the individual. This article draws on Baldwin’s final major essay, “To Crush the Serpent” (1987), to examine the author’s evolving thoughts on religion, salvation, and transgression in the context of the Reagan era.

The Politics of Evangelical Identity

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Bean
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Evangelical Identity ◽  
Moral Attitudes ◽  
The U.S

It is now a common refrain among liberals that Christian Right pastors and television pundits have hijacked evangelical Christianity for partisan gain. This book challenges this notion, arguing that the hijacking metaphor paints a fundamentally distorted picture of how evangelical churches have become politicized. The book reveals how the powerful coalition between evangelicals and the Republican Party is not merely a creation of political elites who have framed conservative issues in religious language, but is anchored in the lives of local congregations. Drawing on research at evangelical churches near the U.S. border with Canada, this book compares how American and Canadian evangelicals talk about politics in congregational settings. While Canadian evangelicals share the same theology and conservative moral attitudes as their American counterparts, their politics are quite different. On the U.S. side of the border, political conservatism is woven into the very fabric of everyday religious practice. The book shows how subtle partisan cues emerge in small group interactions as members define how “we Christians” should relate to others in the broader civic arena, while liberals are cast in the role of adversaries. It explains how the most explicit partisan cues come not from clergy but rather from lay opinion leaders who help their less politically engaged peers to link evangelical identity to conservative politics. This book demonstrates how deep the ties remain between political conservatism and evangelical Christianity in America.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and Alcohol Poisoning: A Fatal Competition

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Mohammad Heidari ◽  
Nasrin Sayfouri
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ministry Of Health ◽  
Alcohol Poisoning ◽  
Methanol Poisoning ◽  
The Public

ABSTRACT In March 2020, concurrently with the outbreak of COVID-19 in Iran, the rate of alcohol poisoning was unexpectedly increased in the country. This study has attempted to make an overall description and analysis of this phenomenon by collecting credible data from the field, news, and reports published by the emergency centers and the Iranian Ministry of Health. The investigations showed that in May 20, 2020, more than 6150 people have been affected by methanol poisoning from whom 804 deaths have been reported. A major cause of the increased rate of alcohol poisoning in this period was actually the illusion that alcohol could eliminate the Coronaviruses having entered the body. It is of utmost importance that all mass media try to dismiss the cultural, religious, and political considerations and prepare convincing programs to openly discuss the side-effects of forged alcohol consumption with the public, especially with the youth. It must be clearly specified that “consuming alcohol cannot help prevent COVID-19.”

Invented Dances, Or, How Nigerian Musicians Sculpt the Body Politic

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Dotun Ayobade
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
African Music

AbstractPopular dances encapsulate the aliveness of Africa's young. Radiating an Africanist aesthetic of the cool, these moves enflesh popular music, saturating mass media platforms and everyday spaces with imageries of joyful transcendence. This essay understands scriptive dance fads as textual and choreographic calls for public embodiment. I explore how three Nigerian musicians, and their dances, have wielded scriptive prompts to elicit specific moved responses from dispersed, heterogenous, and transnational publics. Dance fads of this kind productively complicate musicological approaches that insist on divorcing contemporary African music cultures from the dancing bodies that they often conjure. Taken together, these movements enlist popular culture as a domain marked by telling contestations over musical ownership and embodied citizenship.

A King Cyrus President

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 502-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Barrett-Fox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Open Coding

Religious right leaders and voters in the United States supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election for the same reason that all blocs vote as they do: They believed that the candidate offered them the best opportunity to protect and extend their power and create their preferred government. The puzzle of their support, then, is less why they chose Trump and more how they navigated the process of inserting Trump into their story of themselves as a “moral” majority. This self-understanding promotes and exploits feelings of entitlement, fear, resentment, and the desire to dominate to encourage political action. Because Trump’s speeches affirm these feelings, religious right voters were open to writing a plot twist in their story, casting Trump as a King Cyrus figure, as their champion if not a coreligionist. This article analyzes appeals to and expressions of entitlement, fear, resentment, and the desire to dominate from more than 60 sermons, speeches, and books by religious right authors, Donald Trump, and Trump surrogates. Using open coding, it identifies themes in how these emotions are recognized, affirmed, and invoked by speakers, focusing on Trump’s Cyrus effect.

scholarly journals Progressive Social Movements and the Internet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah J. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Power ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Public Sphere

Because of the field’s foundational concerns with both social power and media, communication scholars have long been at the center of scholarly thought at the intersection of social change and technology. Early critical scholarship in communication named media technologies as central in the creation and maintenance of dominant political ideologies and as a balm against dissent among the masses. This work detailed the marginalization of groups who faced restricted access to mass media creation and exclusion from representational discourse and images, alongside the connections of mass media institutions to political and cultural elites. Yet scholars also highlighted the ways collectives use media technologies for resistance inside their communities and as interventions in the public sphere. Following the advent of the World Wide Web in the late 1980s, and the granting of public access to the Internet in 1991, communication scholars faced a medium that seemed to buck the one-way and gatekeeping norms of others. There was much optimism about the democratic potentials of this new technology. With the integration of Internet technology into everyday life, and its central role in shaping politics and culture in the 21st century, scholars face new questions about its role in dissent and collective efforts for social change. The Internet requires us to reconsider definitions of the public sphere and civil society, document the potentials and limitations of access to and creation of resistant and revolutionary media, and observe and predict the rapidly changing infrastructures and corresponding uses of technology—including the temporality of online messaging alongside the increasingly transnational reach of social movement organizing. Optimism remains, but it has been tempered by the realities of the Internet’s limitations as an activist tool and warnings of the Internet-enabled evolution of state suppression and surveillance of social movements. Across the body of critical work on these topics particular characteristics of the Internet, including its rapidly evolving infrastructures and individualized nature, have led scholars to explore new conceptualizations of collective action and power in a digital media landscape.

scholarly journals The Effect of Health Education to the Mother’s Attitude in Handling Febrille Post DPT Immunization

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 041-046
Author(s):  
Lia Rahmawati ◽  
Wahyu Wibisono
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Experimental Design ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rank Test ◽  
P Value ◽  
Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Wilcoxon Sign Rank ◽  
Sign Rank Test

DPT is an attempt to get immunity against the disease Diphtheria , Pertussis , Tetanus by entering the germs of diphtheria , pertussis , tetanus that have been weakened and turned off into the body so that the body can produce antibodies that will be used for the the body to fight the germs or the three of the disease ( Markum , 2005). The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness health promotion to the mother’s attitudes post DPT immunization on the 3-5 months infants. Method: Research design was Pre-Experimental design using Pre - Post Test approach. Research sample was 19 mothers with infants aged 3-5 months at Pustu slorok District of Garum at June 25th until June 27th,2012, its choosed with total sampling. Data collected by questionaire. Analysis using Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test, with ≤0.05 significant level. Result: The results showed that there was an effect of health promotion to the mother’s attitudes in handling in febrile post DPT , with p value of  0.046. Discussion: Based on the results of the research,it was expected for the respondents to be more active in improving knowledge by emphasizing on information about febrile post DPT immunization either electronic nor mass media so respondents could  improve the attitude in handling the febrile post DPT and minimize the occurrence of Kipi ( Genesis Infection Post Immunization ).

God Can Save Us

Rough Country ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Jerry Falwell ◽  
Protestant Denominations

This chapter discusses the emergence of the New Christian Right or simply the Religious Right as a powerful new force in American politics. The rise of the Religious Right has been examined from all angles, and several key factors have been identified. It clearly depended on leadership. The most visible leaders were preacher Jerry Falwell, whose Moral Majority rallies at state capitals had been gaining attention in the late 1970s, and fellow televangelist Pat Robertson, whose popular 700 Club television program included discussions of social and moral topics. Both were canny entrepreneurs who knew how to attract media attention, and there were conservative political operatives eager to enlist their support. There were unifying issues as well, such as opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and promiscuity, and the more general sense that religion was under siege by secularity and humanism. And there were lingering divisions within Protestant denominations and among Catholics over such issues as social activism, the legacies of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, communism, gender equality, the ordination of women, and theology.

The Bible and the Religious Right

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Barrett-Fox
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
American Law ◽  
Conservative Christians

This chapter identifies the doctrines that are central to conservative American Christians’ interpretation of biblical texts. Such believers view their scriptures as inerrant, literal, divinely inspired, authoritative, easily understood, internally consistent, and coherent, a vision of the Bible that does not necessarily lead to conservative social and political views, even as those conservative Christians who participate in conservative politics insist that it must. Those who use conservative faith to justify conservative politics form the Religious Right, which seeks to form a “Bible-based” America, one in which a limited government promotes a strong international presence, free-market capitalism, and individual liberty. This chapter traces how the Religious Right promotes the Bible as the root of American law, a hierarchy that allows them to argue that all those in the United States, not merely conservative Christians, are under the authority of the Bible, creating a mandate for Christians to seek and maintain power.

Evangelicals and Politics: A Rethinking

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
David P. Gushee
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Southern Baptist ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Boundary Crossing ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Baptist Church ◽  
American Evangelicalism

I understand my primary task in this essay to be to take you inside the world of evangelical political reflection and engagement. Though I actually grew up Roman Catholic and attended the liberal Union Theological Seminary in New York, I am by now an evangelical insider, rooted deeply in red state mid-South America, a member of a Southern Baptist church (actually, an ordained minister), a teacher at a Tennessee Baptist university, and a columnist for the flagship Christianity Today magazine. Due to the blue state/red state, liberal/conservative boundary-crossing that has characterized my background, I am often called upon to interpret our divided internal “cultures” one to another. Trained to be fair-minded and judicious in my analysis and judgments (though not always successful in meeting the standards of my training), I seek to help bridge the culture wars divide that is tearing our nation apart.As one deeply invested in American evangelicalism, most of my attention these days now goes to the internal conversation within evangelical life about our identity and mission, especially our social ethics and political engagement. In this essay I will focus extensively on problems I currently see with evangelical political engagement, addressing those from within the theological framework of evangelical Christianity and inviting others to listen in to what I am now saying to my fellow evangelicals.

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