Evangelical Politics Research Articles

The New Apostolic Reformation, Trump, and Evangelical Politics: The Prophecy Voter by Damon T. Berry (review)

The New Apostolic Reformation, Trump, and Evangelical Politics: The Prophecy Voter by Damon T. Berry (review)

El pueblo evangélico. Construcción hegemónica, disputas minoritarias y reaccion conservadora

Latin American evangelical politics can be seen, in Laclauian terms, as a construction of the people. More precisely, as the construction of the evangelical people, a minority with demands and a voice of its own in a “Catholic” continent of secular states. It is an evangelical construction of a country’s people in contexts in which evangelicals are considered a sociopolitical force with hegemonic aspirations. However, this double narrative has become complicated in recent years in the rough seas of the so-called conservative wave. A prominent alliance between the political far-right, neoliberalism and the parliamentary and pastoral evangelical elite reverberates from Brazil, which creates serious issues for the expectations of a pluralist impact of the public evangelical presence.Keywords: Evangelical people, parliamentary and pastoral evangelical elite, religion and politics, Brazil, Laclau.

Milton's Genderqueer Christianity

ABSTRACT Queer theory has never been an explicit strand of Milton studies, nor has Milton been central to early modern queer studies, in part because he resists the secularization that has been assumed to be a necessary condition of queerness. I propose that Milton's value for early modern queer and trans theory in fact arises from his unique authority and canonical status as a radical Christian poet. We can trace in his writing the ambiguities and exclusions that inevitably permeate queer and trans scholarship as a contested and heterogeneous field. It is because of his Christian convictions, not in spite of them, that Milton allows us to understand religious thought as producing the unstable and promiscuous genders and desires that modern evangelical politics would prohibit.

The Nationalist Roots of White Evangelical Politics

White evangelicals remain some of Donald Trump's most steadfast supporters. Connections between white supremacy and evangelical political theology first found new expression in the 1970s. For decades now, evangelicals have railed against "big government" as a threat to religious freedom

Pentecostals, Israel, and the Prophetic Politics of Dominion

ABSTRACTThis essay traces the evolution of a specific tradition of prophecy interpretation in U.S. pentecostal-charismatic circles, which I dub the “prophetic politics of dominion.” From the start, this strain of pentecostal-charismatic religiosity merged transnational sensibilities with dominion-style language but typically shied away from overt political organization. Building on Israel-themed symbols and ideas acquired from nineteenth-century evangelical prophecy interpretation, a small but influential group of white proto-pentecostals and early pentecostals embraced a distinctive set of eschatological teachings known as British Israelism and its attendant literal racial identification of Anglo-Saxons with Jews. Such emphases bolstered a conviction that spirit-empowered Christians would exert significant influence on global politics prior to the Second Coming of Jesus. In the ensuing decades, a vocal minority of notable pentecostals and their charismatic successors kept alive similar emphases even as they eschewed the highly racialized conceptions of pentecostal connections to the “Lost Tribes of Israel.” More comfortable employing Christian millennial tropes than engaging pragmatic politics, these figures, nevertheless, anticipated the rapid Christianization of society and their own ascendance to positions of spiritual and temporal power in preparation for Christ's return. All the while, Israel-centric symbols and identities remained central. The crystallization of this transnational, dominion-now tradition, with its unique Israel-centric emphases and millennial motifs, represented one of the most significant—and most misunderstood—contributions to evangelical politics by U.S. pentecostals and charismatics over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

From the State of the Teutonic Order to the Duchy – the Evangelical Reformation or Politics? (German)

From the State of the Teutonic Order to the Duchy – the Evangelical Reformation or Politics? (German)

American Evangelical Politics before the Christian Right

Is American Evangelicalism a politically progressive tradition? For contemporary observers who are familiar with American Evangelicalism only in its modern, politically conservative guise, the idea that many American Evangelicals have traditionally been on the left end of the political spectrum might come as a surprise. Yet, according to Randall Balmer's Evangelicalism in America and Frances Fitzgerald's The Evangelicals, both of which offer two-hundred-year surveys of Evangelical political activism in the United States, the Christian Right is an aberration in American Evangelicalism and not representative of the tradition's political orientation.

God’s Province: Evangelical Christianity, Political Thought, and Conservatism in Alberta

God’s Province: Evangelical Christianity, Political Thought, and Conservatism in Alberta

Revivalist Nationalism since World War II: From “Wake up, America!” to “Make America Great Again”

Between 1945 and 1980, evangelicals emerged as a key political constituency in American politics, helping to form the Religious Right and work for the election of Ronald Reagan and other conservative Republicans. This article argues that they embraced a distinctive type of revivalist nationalism, centered around the mass revival. Case studies of Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Jerry Falwell, and Ronald Reagan offer a narrative of postwar revivalist nationalism and demonstrate that evangelicals renegotiated the relationship between personal salvation and national renewal during this period, facilitating their mass entry into partisan politics. Billy Graham presented in his early crusades an unsophisticated assumption that mass conversion would lead to national renewal. Later revivalists such as Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, sought to reorient revivalism toward directed political organization, leading in the 1970s to decreasing emphasis on personal conversion and increasing focus on the political process. By the 1980 presidential election, the Religious Right had completely abandoned the priority of personal conversion and sought instead to revive the “principles” of a Christian America. Ronald Reagan embodied this principle-oriented revival, and helped crystalize a revivalist nationalism that remains embedded in contemporary evangelical politics.

“The World of Politics is the World of Possibilities”: Bill C-43 and Canadian Evangelical Political Engagement

“The World of Politics is the World of Possibilities”: Bill C-43 and Canadian Evangelical Political Engagement

American Evangelicals and Conservative Politics: Past, Present, and Future

AbstractSince the late 1970s, American evangelicals have been a potent influence in conservative politics. Recent scholarship both refines and contextualizes some of the central themes found in the broader literature on evangelical politics. We first review key recent scholarship in American religious history. It shows that current patterns of evangelical conservatism are the product of historically contingent social forces and that political conservatism was never uniform among evangelicals. We then discuss recent scholarship on evangelicals' attitudes toward public issues. This work indicates that commitment to moral traditionalism on social issues is the dominant force animating evangelical political conservatism and that evangelicals remain distinctly Republican in their partisan voting despite economic and foreign policy commitments that are not as strongly aligned with Republican priorities. We then shift our focus to the dominant conservative movement of the moment: the Tea Party. We cite evidence that evangelicals and the Tea Party remain distinct in terms of constituents and issue priorities but that social concerns may be taking precedence over the economic concerns that birthed the movement. We conclude by discussing recent trends that suggest that a de‐alignment between evangelicalism and conservative politics may be underway.

"Nosso Terreno" crise moral, política evangélica e a formação da 'Nova Direita' brasileira

A direita política evangélica no Brasil tornou-se presuntiva, mas foram prefiguradas durante os processos simultâneos de redemocratização nacional e de politização evangélica na década de 1970 . Nesta encruzilhada, os líderes de várias denominações religiosas adotaram a linguagem de uma crise moral aguda, lançando as bases para uma direita evangélica. A própria crise moral tornou-se "nosso terreno", o ponto de inserção dos evangélicos de direita na esfera política, e uma das várias questões-chave que dividem evangélicos reacionários e seus correligionários progressistas. Até o momento da Constituinte, a posição dos Batistas e Assembleianos, como vozes dos conservadores que apoiaram amplamente o regime militar e se opuseram às iniciativas de justiça social do ecumenismo de esquerda e ao comunismo, tinha sido estabelecida após anos de pronunciamentos que ligavam essas questões à crise moral. Este artigo inicia um exame desses anos, dos contornos determinantes da transição gradual das coisas etéreas para as coisas políticas - e o significado destes contornos para facilitar a ascensão da direita evangélica.

Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought. Edited by Jesse Covington, Bryan T. McGraw, and Micah Watson. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012. 304p.

Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought. Edited by Jesse Covington, Bryan T. McGraw, and Micah Watson. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012. 304p.

American evangelicals and the 1960s

In late 1970s, New Christian Right emerged as a formidable political force, boldly announcing itself as a unified movement representing views of a moral majority. But that movement did not spring fully formed from its predecessors. American Evangelicals and 1960s refutes thesis that evangelical politics were a purely inflammatory backlash against cultural and political upheaval of decade. Bringing together fresh research and innovative interpretations, this book demonstrates that evangelicals actually participated in broader American developments during the long 1960s, that evangelical constituency was more diverse than often noted, and that notion of right-wing evangelical politics as a backlash was a later creation serving interests of both Republican-conservative alliances and their critics. Evangelicalism's involvement with - rather than its reaction against - main social movements, public policy initiatives, and cultural transformations of 1960s proved significant in its 1970s political ascendance. Twelve essays that range thematically from oil industry to prison ministry and from American counterculture to Second Vatican Council depict modern evangelicalism both as a religious movement with its own internal dynamics and as one fully integrated into general American history.

Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought. Edited by JesseCovington, BryanMcGraw, and MicahWatson. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013. Pp. v + 287. $80.00.

Natural Law and Evangelical Political Thought. Edited by JesseCovington, BryanMcGraw, and MicahWatson. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013. Pp. v + 287. $80.00.

American evangelicals and domestic versus international climate policy

Because a significant portion of the American electorate identify themselves as evangelical Christians, the evangelical position on climate policy is important to determining the role the United States could play in global climate cooperation. Do evangelicals oppose all climate policies, or are they particularly opposed to certain types of policies? We argue that American evangelicals oppose climate policy due to their distrust of international cooperation and institutions, which has been a prominent feature of evangelical politics since the beginning of the Cold War. Using data from the 2011 Faith and Global Policy Challenges survey and the 2010 Chicago Council Global View survey, we find support for the theory. Evangelicals are equally likely to support domestic climate policy as other Americans, but they are significantly less likely to support international treaties on climate cooperation. The findings suggest that proponents of climate policy could win more evangelicals to their side by focusing on domestic action, instead of multilateral negotiations or international institutions.

TURNING THE CLOCK BACK OR BREAKING WITH THE PAST?: Charismatic Temporality and Elite Politics in Côte d’Ivoire and the United States

The article explores the forms of punctuated time that characterize evangelical discourse in both Cote d’Ivoire and the United States. It compares forms of punctuated time that not only form the basis of End Times theology in both places, but also have served as the basis of important lobbying networks. Although evangelical politics in each place has different roots, both are linked by populist anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rhetoric. Most importantly, I argue, the shared structure of eschataological temporality shapes the elective affinities that brought together such strange bedfellows as Pat Robertson and Laurent Gbagbo.

Megachurches and the Problem of Leadership: an Analysis of the Encounter between the Evangelical World and Politics in Argentina

Researchers usually address the political aspect of Evangelical groups by highlighting their involvement in party politics: their ability to create new organisations or form alliances with existing ones, introducing into the electoral field the assumption of a more or less homogeneous or easily influenced ‘Christian vote’. However, historical experience in Argentina shows that launching into politics is full of obstacles. Some of the most important innovations introduced by Neo-Pentecostalism – as the fastest-growing expression of the Evangelical world – are linked to the consolidation of megachurches in middle- and high-class neighbourhoods and the training of Evangelical leaders on a large scale. Both these innovations develop in correlation with a shift of the Gospel towards the ‘world’ and the need for social change; that is, a Christian call to transform the environment. This article aims to explore the political implications of Evangelical leadership in megachurches located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This work is based on original materials, compiled for a research project using ethnographic techniques such as participant observation, in-depth interviews and documentation review.

“God Is My Partner”: An Evangelical Business Man Confronts Depression and War

“‘God Is My Partner’: An Evangelical Business Man Confronts Depression and War” chronicles the early career of R. G. LeTourneau, an industrialist and lay preacher whose life challenges the historiography of mid-twentieth-century fundamentalism as apolitical and otherworldly. In the 1930s and 1940s, every businessman had to grapple with the expanding federal state under the New Deal and in World War II. LeTourneau exemplified theologically conservative evangelical resourcefulness under changing political and economic conditions. Born in 1888 to a Plymouth Brethren family, his cultural memory reached back to the evangelical business activism of the nineteenth century, while his future lay in the fundamentalist subculture that the Brethren did much to create. However, as a businessman, LeTourneau had little patience with doctrines dividing “the world” from the church. He integrated evangelicalism into his manufacturing and managerial roles, and pushed fundamentalist clergy to tap laymen's proselytizing energy. Between 1930 and 1943, the years on which this article focuses, LeTourneau attacked dilemmas that preoccupied other evangelical business men: higher taxes, greater regulation, a forceful labor movement, and the challenge, as he saw it, to uphold the gospel and private enterprise against communist subversion. Business men such as LeTourneau represented the front line of what scholars have too often dismissed as trivial: evangelical politics during the New Deal.

Pilgrimage in the jet age: the development of the American evangelical Holy Land travel industry, 1948–1978

The period from 1948 to 1978 was the key transitional moment that brought modern, mass tourism to the Holy Land. It also saw the rise of American tourism as the primary market segment in the area. Yet the period remains woefully understudied, lost amidst ample scholarly work about Holy Land travel in earlier and later periods. This article examines the development of the American evangelical Holy Land travel industry in this period. It argues that scholars should conceive of the middle-class Christian leisure industry in ways that correspond to how historian Lisa McGirr has described the rise of evangelical politics in the same period: a series of overlapping grassroots networks. Two major points about these networks are highlighted. First, Catholic companies, which have remained obscured in tourism history literature, actually provided the first models in this homegrown industry. Second, fledgling evangelical companies positioned themselves as insiders in faith communities by adapting models from the Christians they served, such as the pastor–lay relationship and the trend toward non-denominationalism in the 1970s.