Research On Religion » Tea Party

Hunter Baker on the Past and Future of the Religious Right

tonygill — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 08:00:01 +0000

The Religious Right has been a force to be reckoned with in American politics over the past four decades, but is its influence on the wane as many of its initial leaders and intellectuals pass from the scene? Prof. Hunter Baker, associate professor of political science and Dean of Instruction at Union University, talks about the past, present, and future of this movement based upon his most recent book The System Has a Soul.

Following some light banter about puppies, Prof. Baker provides us with a definition of what the Religious Right is, noting that it has been a term that has been ill-defined and often used to refer to poor and uneducated religious voters. Hunter points out that this movement has some deep and surprising intellectual roots. While religious involvement in American politics has a long history, he dates the current movement back to William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes Monkey Trial and then picks up the story in the mid-20th century with the emergence of a number of “neo-evangelical” thinkers such as Carl F.H. Henry and Frances Schaeffer. We review the interesting influence these thinkers had and note the surprising activist background of these individuals, including Schaeffer’s willingness to “listen to hippies” and pro-labor attitudes (things that are not normally associated with the media caricature of the Religious Right).

We then talk about the emergence of the movement in the 1970s with individuals such as Chuck Colson arguing for religion to take on a more public profile and events such as the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision playing an important mobilizing effect. This is where Hunter explains how Christians began to reject “functional differentiation” and helps Tony understand what that social scientific-sounding terms means. While many neo-evangelicals supported Jimmy Carter’s bid for the presidency in 1976 and that many Democrats were supporters of the pro-life movement that was gaining ground, Hunter points out the shift that occurs to the Republican Party in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan’s embrace of these individuals with his famous quote, “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.” Our conversation also covers the extent to which this movement was merely an evangelical Christian movement or whether it entailed non-Protestant thinkers such as Richard John Neuhaus.

We review the public rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s with reference to Falwell’s Moral Majority and Robertson’s Christian Coalition, but Hunter points out that it was James Dobson’s Focus on the Family that probably had the bigger and more lasting impact on the movement. Again he points out that Dobson, who has a Ph.D., is indicative of the scholarly grounding of the movement contrary to a media opinion that paints the movement as anti-intellectual. Although the demise of the Moral Majority and the election of Bill Clinton as president are often seen as indications of the waning of the Religious Right in the 1990s, Hunter asserts that the movement took on a more grassroots approach and was able to develop a “deeper bench” by electing adherents to office and placing them in the Academy. He makes the claim that the real peak of the Religious Right movement was around 2005. Disillusionment with the presidency of George W. Bush and the apparent failings of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aided in eroding the influence of Christian conservatives during this time. We also discuss the politics surrounding same-sex marriage and how losses in the battle to ban gay marriage have also chipped away at the movement’s strength.

We finally turn our attention to the future of the Religious Right. Tony asks to what extent the Tea Party represents a revitalization of the Christian conservatives, but Prof. Baker notes that the Tea Party represents a distinct social movement. Nonetheless, he raises the issue of religious liberty and how Christians are now seeing this as a major issue that may allow them to align with the more libertarian leanings of the Tea Party. We also chat about the recent writings of Jonathan Malesic and James Davison Hunter who argue that it may be a time for Christians to embrace secularism and perhaps take a “season of silence.” Hunter provides his thoughts on this topic and we ruminate about the future of Christian political activism in the United States noting that there have been periods of waxing and waning throughout the long course of history and we may be witnessing one of those waning moments. Recorded: July 23, 2014.

Jeremy Lott on America’s Shifting Religious Election Coalition

tonygill — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 08:00:19 +0000

What hath Election 2012 wrought? Are we witnessing a re-alignment of religious voters with Catholics shifting away from the Democrats and evangelicals becoming comfortable with a Mormon running for national office? Jeremy Lott, author and editor of RealClearReligion (among other sites), joins us to talk about his new, free e-book entitled Mitt Romney’s Mormon-Christian Coalition. We start off first, though, by examining if there have been any trends in how the media have dealt with the religious angle in the current election. Jeremy’s role with RealClearReligion gives him an advantage in answering this question and he provides some interesting insights on how places like The New York Times have covered religion. We then spend a short bit of time to look at how atheists have tried to get in the mix of electoral politics by putting up images of Jesus on toast and a man in glowing underwear before the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Our discussion then turns to how Democrats have dealt with religion in recent years and how President Obama’s seeming lack of faith (as viewed in opinion polls) and how the debate over contraception and abortion in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare) has affected religious voters, particularly Catholics. Indeed, the politics behind getting Obamacare passed and how regulations were later imposed despite initial understandings of what that legislation would do may have shattered a fragile coalition that Democrats have maintained with Catholics since Roe v Wade and the Hyde Amendment prohibiting funding for abortion at the federal level. Tony wonders how much lay Catholic voters will respond to criticisms of the Obama Administration levelled by various Catholic Church leaders. We then look at how Mitt Romney may be using this growing rift to his advantage, in part by choosing Paul Ryan, a practicing Catholic, as his running mate. We also look at how Romney has tried to assuage the fears of evangelical leaders who have had a suspicion of Mormon religious views, and how Romney infused the Republican National Convention with how Mormon values are American values without making overt appeals to Mormonism. Jeremy also notes how Mitt’s missionary background has been influential in crafting his political career, including a life-threatening car crash. The claim is made that his ability to speak to different audiences as a missionary has affected how he positions himself on various political issues, sometimes giving him the image of being a flip-flopper. But Jeremy notes that this is also an indication of how Romney learns over time and that there is no “Romney-ism” but rather a pragmatic turn-around artist who is also a skillful politician. During an earlier point in the podcast, Jeremy claims that he will “eat his hat” if the Republicans take Pennsylvania in the presidential election, a claim that Tony intends to revisit in several weeks. Recorded: October 15, 2012.

Kevin den Dulk on Religion, Education, and Civic Engagement

tonygill — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 08:00:36 +0000

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With all the talk about declining levels of civic engagement in the United States, is there any evidence that religious education might play a role in promoting community involvement among youth and young adults? Prof. Kevin den Dulk, the Spoelhof Teacher-Scholar-in-Residence at Calvin College and the forthcoming director of the Henry Institute, discusses his latest research project that examines what factors are important in determining whether or not young adults become involved in their community. He finds, much to his suprise, that a private school education at a Protestant institution is much more likely to facilitate and sustain civic engagement in early adulthood years compared to other forms of education, including homeschooling, Catholic schools, private secular institutions, and public education. Speaking of education, our podcast begins with Kevin schooling Tony about the origins of Calivin College, which Tony discovers is not named after the 30th president of the United States. We then get down to business by examining the assertion that civic participation has declined in the U.S., with Tony taking a skeptical view of such claims and Kevin turning the tables and becoming the interviewer, leaving the host to be the one defending his claims. We discuss some of the potential biases in research that shows secular declines in some variable, be it civic participation or mainline church attendance. We also discuss some of the reasons why people become involved in their local community and note that it is often because they are passionately drawn (often out of anger) to solve some social problem they see happening. The conversation then veers towards Kevin’s research project with his fellow scholar Jonathan Hall. We chat about how this project came about and the nature of the data used. Kevin lays out the theoretical framework of the study showing how he and Jonathan tested the role of “opportunity structures” and “motivations” (both intrinsic and extrinsic). We then discuss the surprising finding that whereas young adults who attended Catholic schools were similar in nature to their public school counterparts when it came to civic engagement, students from Protestant private schools were much more likely to be civically engaged, even after adjusting for numerous other possible factors. Homeschoolers and individuals who attended private secular schools were much less likely to engage in civic participation. We then speculate as to why this was the case and open the door to a wide research agenda that could further explore this outcome. Kevin then finishes off with an optimistic view of civic engagement in the United States. Recorded: June 18, 2012.