God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right
Author(s): Daniel K. Williams (Author)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: October 4, 2010
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Print length: 400 pages
ISBN-10: 0195340841
ISBN-13: 9780195340846
Book Description
When the Christian Right burst onto the scene in the late 1970s, many political observers were shocked. But, as God’s Own Party demonstrates, they shouldn’t have been. The Christian Right goes back much farther than most journalists, political scientists, and historians realize. Relying on extensive archival and primary source research, Daniel K. Williams presents the first comprehensive history of the Christian Right, uncovering how evangelicals came to see the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could reclaim America as a Christian nation. A fascinating and much-needed account of a key force in American politics, God’s Own Party is the only full-scale analysis of the electoral shifts, cultural changes, and political activists at the movement’s core–showing how the Christian Right redefined politics as we know it.
Preachers, declared an impassioned Jerry Falwell in 1965, are not called to be politicians but to be soul winners. The historical irony in these words is particularly evident to Williams, who recounts how Falwell and other Evangelical preachers became power brokers within the Republican Party. What may surprise many readers, though, is how conservative Protestants began inserting themselves into the nation’s political process as early as the 1920s and 1930s, trying to use the platforms of both parties to combat cultural liberalism, and then more effectively pressing a bipartisan anticommunism in the 1950s. But Williams highlights a decisive turn in the late 1960s, when celebrity evangelist Billy Graham threw his support behind the shrewdly opportunistic Richard Nixon. Analysis of the 1970s reveals how social controversies—the ERA, the Pill, homosexual rights, abortion—intensified Evangelical commitment to the GOP. A more complex picture emerges in a concluding analysis showing younger Evangelicals discovering environmental and social-justice concerns. An essential resource for anyone trying to understand how religion affects American politics. –Bryce Christensen
Review
”Williams…does as well as any writer to date in answering the basic questions of what went into making up the religious right.” —The New Republic
”Thoroughly researched and engagingly written…God’s Own Party should serve as the standard history of the latest Protestant Right for the foreseeable future.” —Journal of American History
”A wonderfully thorough account of the Christian Right…A bright example of sound methodology, clear and concise prose, and rigorous analysis. Based on years of painstaking research in a multitude of periodicals, personal and political papers, and organizational records, God’s Own Party effectively transports the reader through time, charting the development of Christian right-wing activism over the course of ninety years.” —Journal of Southern Religion
”The best general study of the Religious Right.” —Church History
“I have long sought a book that would present the history of how the GOP became, in the mind of most conservative Christians, God s Own Party…This is the book I have been waiting for…For an interesting and objective history of the Christian Right, I highly recommend Williams book. –Laurence M. Vance, LewRockwell.com
“[T]his book is a needed addition to scholarship on the rise of the New Right.”–Religious Studies Review
About the Author
Associate Professor of History at the University of West Georgia.
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