Rejoinder to Hunter: Religious Orthodoxy: An Army without Foot Soldiers?

Abstract

qualification of these authors that religious liberalism and conservatism onJy tend align with political liberalism and conservatism. We pointed out, however, that Wuthnow and Hunter strongly implied that individuals at the poles of religious orthodoxy and moral progressivism are like-minded through their portrayal of the sides as camps, their use of war metaphors to describe the religious struggle, their inattention to divisions within the sides along lines of race, class, and gender, and, in Hunter's case, the claim that many separate struggles over abortion, school prayer, affirmative action, busing, etc., share a common root in fundamentally different moral cosmologies. We also noted that the mass media and political and religious leaders portray the sides as more nearly monolithic than do Wuthnow and Hunter. Our findings of little political uniformity among the religiously orthodox are more damning of the claims of the mass media, religious leaders, and politicians than they are of Wuthnow's and Hunter's more qualified positions.