New Christian Right Movement

“Conservative evangelicals who had returned to the Democratic Party in 1976 now defected back to the Republican Party, solidifying a trend in the making.” The Religious Right had effectively crystallized a general trend in the electorate. After the election of 1980, the Religious Right became “synonymous with the GOP in popular imagination” and socially conservative values became synonymous with the conservative movement. Despite the dissolution of the organizations that comprised the Religious Right later in the 1980s, its influence on conservatism in America had solidified and, until this day, has remained a decisive factor in both local and national

Evangelicalism came out of various movements that came in the Protestant church the second Great Awakening” of the 1820s-1840s, resulted in the “Christianization” of young America and the dominance of evangelicalism over the American religious climate ”.The Second Great Awakening marked a fundamental transition in American religious life. Many early American religious groups in the CALVINIST tradition had emphasized the deep depravity of human beings and believed they could only be saved through the grace of God. The new evangelical movement, however, placed greater emphasis on humans' ability to change their situation for the better. By stressing that individuals could assert their "FREE WILL" in choosing to be saved and by suggesting that

Just as groups had formed against the consumption of alcohol, isolated religious groups began to form against everyone but themselves. Called “Utopian Communities”, religious groups were created that challenged society and it’s religions, which is very similar to the Evangelical movement. There were hundreds of these communities, with one of the most popular being the “Shakers”.9 The Shakers believed in the complete equality of male and females, but at the price of being completely celibate. The only way there could be new members was if there were converts or children who would come into a Shaker village. Most of these utopian communities shared an idea of millennialism, which talks about Jesus returning and a new era of the world beginning. The social impact of this is blatantly clear; many more religious groups were being created, rather than a few sects of religion.

Modern Times by Paul Johnson gives an overview of the history from the nineteen twenties until the nineteen nineties. He bases his book on the presuppositions of the Judeo-Christian worldview. Johnson is very clear in his belief in the Judeo-Christian worldview as he states it explicitly multiple times throughout his lengthy book. The presuppositions of the Judeo-Christian worldview are: “the Kingdom of God is spiritual, man is prophet, priest, and king under a sovereign God and that there is no institutional interposition between God and man.” This worldview causes him to affirm limited government, free market economics, the rule of law and self-government.

How was American Christianity democratized during this period, and how else was the United States democratized?

Fundamentalists believed in traditional Christian values rooted in the past. After World War II, fundamentalists became concerned with the morality of the country. Therefore, prominent leaders such as Billy Graham emerged to sway Americans towards a return to Christian Values where children were taught religion in schools, abortion was illegal, and women and men were married before having children. In addition, this group used politics to push their agenda; they courted and helping to elect political candidates that would legislated policies that were important to their ideals. Hence, the group was able to ensure the election of presidents, but their efforts proved misguided as promises were broken and their message was unrealized.

During the Reformation, there were a few strong people who saw problems with the way things had always been done. The churches had corrupt leaders who were not teaching in accordance with the Bible. They were making up whatever they wanted, and they had power to get away with this because they were also part of the government. There arose a movement to refute and stop this. Strong opposers took strong stands to point out the errors of what was going on, and to try to reform the religious system in power. This did not go over very well with the religious leaders, but after years of battling and debating, the protestant view of Christianity won the freedom to worship as they wished. In a similar way, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,

The New Right is sociological perspective which goes against the ideas of collectivism. The Conservative Government had noticed that the welfare state was costing too much money and people were being reliant upon it. The New Right are for hard-working workforce and people fending for themselves rather than living off the state. They say that benefits encourage people not to work. If there was less welfare benefits it would make people want to go and work as the need to get money. The New Right is for privatization as it believes that private institutions provide better quality and are more beneficial to customers in comparison to the public sector. The New Right also talks about how if there was there was less state intervention, the government

The Moral Majority was founded by Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1979. As an evangelical minister and founder of Liberty University, he fully supported the beliefs and conservative ideals of the New Right. Falwell was one of many evangelists who ushered the New Right into the 1980s and paved the way for a new order in American politics. The Moral Majority was reaching audiences that were unheard of in the decades prior to the 1980s. This was an effect of “televangelists,” or evangelical preachers who appeared regularly on television to preach their beliefs. By broadcasting over radio, direct-mail marketing, and cable TV, “televangelists” were able to reach millions of American voters. They constantly advocated for the New Right’s conservative causes. The “televangelists” were one of the most important causes to the rise of the New Right into the American political system of the

In the Social Order the Evangelicalism way where fulfilled by having big impacts in many ways. They group had significant affects on three aspects of American culture. One of the three aspects was the drinking habit of the people. Another aspect was ideals of women and the family. Also another aspect and probably the most important to the group were the Protestant attitudes towards a growing population of Roman Catholics.

The movement tended to focus more on retaining the spiritual and religious values of Christianity while at

There was much social unrest, changing economies, wars, and migration on both side of the Atlantic during the eighteenth century, which might have caused the appeal of evangelical Christianity.

Politicians have found in the evangelical community a dedicated constituency and continue to benefit off of their fear based religious practices to move forward their political agenda. Currently, 85 out of the 513 seats in Brazil’s lower house of congress is occupied by Evangelical lawmakers. Therefore, similar to the current American discourse, the religious right is dominating national debate on topics such as gay rights, racial equality, women’s reproductive health and other social issues.

I found the analysis in Robert Putnam and David Campbell book “American Grace”, of how much religion has change over the last 50 years most interesting and helpful to understanding how religion changes with the culture. In the book, Putnam and Campbell say America has experienced three seismic shocks in the last 50 years. In the 1960s religious congregants plummeted due in part to the older generations expectations of the younger generations. Then, in the 1970s and the 1980s the country had transformed tremendously in all aspects more for worse than the better giving the conservatives of the time an opportunity to resurrect evangelicalism and gave rise to the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, young people especially have been turned off by

Christians typically see social activism and social reform as the best way to help the disadvantaged, but the place where disenfranchised persons