By Wacker, Grant

At the end of the 1980s, it was commonly assumed that the Christian Right consisted entirely of evangelical Protestants. More precisely, the Christian Right drew support from politically conservative Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and occasionally secularists. At the same time, many evangelical Protestants showed little interest in the Christian Right’s political goals. It may be helpful, then, to think of the Christian Right as the large shaded area in the middle of two overlapping circles. The shaded area consists of (1) evangelicals who cared enough about the political goals of the Christian Right to leave their pews and get out the vote and (2) non-evangelicals who cared enough about the political goals of the Christian Right to work with evangelicals. Though the Christian Right’s numerical strength leveled off in the early 1990s, its influence at the grass roots, in state and local elections, in setting school board policies, etc., has remained conspicuous.

Subjects

History / Education Studies / American History / Christianity / Evangelicalism / Conservatism / United States Politics /