Quote:
Originally Posted by bwslim69
Thanks...read through them. Candidly with all the dick waving I had blasted past most of this stuff first time through.
It's fine. Certain posters have a very low signal-to-noise ratio, and it's easy to skip past things if you're just skimming around.
Quote:
I was looking for something more along the lines of the influence of Religious Right over the last, say 40 years, as opposed to whether religious leaders are reacting appropriately to the current president.
Here's something on the rise of the religious right and how it got tied up in political conservatism (basically, social issues):
https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpress...&brand=ucpress
From there, you kind of have to be careful what you mean by the religious right, as different people take it different ways. If you are broadly speaking about "religious on the right" then you'll get one story. If you are talking more specifically about the "Religious Right" as a movement, you'll get another one. The former still exists (there are definitely religious people on the right), but the "Religious Right" is a dead political movement that was weakened over the Clinton presidency, and basically killed by Bush Jr.
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/05/5216/
Quote:
Then in 2000, George W. Bush broke with the Religious Right strategy decisively. He aligned with conservatives on social issues and wasn’t shy about identifying himself personally as a man of faith, but he eschewed triumphalist rhetoric and kept Religious Right leaders at arm’s length. He emphasized that he was equally sympathetic not only to “people of all faiths,” but also to “people of no faith” and their concerns. His heavy investment in positive portrayals of Islam after 9/11 was of a piece with this. Bush’s desire to treat Christianity, Islam, and atheism as functionally equivalent for civic purposes stands in stark contrast to the “Judeo-Christian” moral traditionalism of the Religious Right. Bush consistently appealed to what he said were universal values shared by all humanity; whatever you think of that, it isn’t what Pat Robertson believes.
We see remnants of that time, such as the Falwell Jr.'s existence at Liberty University and the things that they're doing, and you see hints of some of that same posturing in Franklin Graham's statements (I don't think he was politically active in the late 1980s/early 1990s -- but some still label him as "Religious Right" meaning something akin to the political movement), but it's far from clear how much influence is actually wielded by those people.
Liberty University is kind of falling apart right now.
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/15/76104...alwell-scandal
Quote:
Falwell is under renewed scrutiny after reports from several news outlets raised questions about his activities, including a lengthy investigation published in Politico this past week. It pulls together multiple claims of business dealings by Liberty University which sources say directly benefited Falwell's family and friends, inappropriate comments allegedly made by Falwell to colleagues and apparent attempts to mobilize students on behalf of Falwell's own political goals.
And Trump's presence there a couple years back wasn't exactly a clean win for him:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/u...ity-trump.html
Quote:
Dozens of Liberty University alumni plan to return their diplomas in protest after the university’s leader, Jerry Falwell Jr., defended President Trump’s response to the white supremacist rally and deadly car attack in Charlottesville, Va.
A lot of younger Christians don't even know who Franklin Graham is beyond having something to do with "Operation Christmas Child" which is a Christmas gift program, and most don't really know a lot about his politics. His draw is much stronger with the older Christian conservative population that are looking for something like the "Religious Right" of 40 years ago.
So when you're looking for effects today, you're going to be looking at something like secondary or tertiary effects. The core of the movement is dead. Those older white Evangelicals are still around, but they're starting to fade. And maybe the Trump presidency is slowly pushing them even further out of the mainstream.