Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right

De: Randall Balmer

Narrado por: Trevor Thompson

A surprising and disturbing origin story

There is a commonly accepted story about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: With righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The problem is this story simply isn’t true.

Largely ambivalent about abortion until the late 1970s, evangelical leaders were first mobilized not by Roe v. Wade but by Green v. Connally, a lesser-known court decision in 1971 that threatened the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory institutions - of which there were several in the world of Christian education at the time. When the most notorious of these schools, Bob Jones University, had its tax-exempt status revoked in 1976, evangelicalism was galvanized as a political force and brought into the fold of the Republican Party. Only later, when a more palatable issue was needed to cover for what was becoming an increasingly unpopular position following the civil rights era, was the moral crusade against abortion made the central issue of the movement now known as the Religious Right.

In this greatly expanded argument from his 2014 Politico article “The Real Origins of the Religious Right”, Randall Balmer guides the listener along the convoluted historical trajectory that began with American evangelicalism as a progressive force opposed to slavery, then later an isolated apolitical movement in the mid-20th century, all the way through the 2016 election in which 81 percent of white evangelicals coalesced around Donald Trump for president. The pivotal point, Balmer shows, was the period in the late 1970s when American evangelicals turned against Jimmy Carter - despite his being one of their own, a professed “born-again” Christian - in favor of the Republican Party, which found it could win their loyalty through the espousal of a single issue. With the implications of this alliance still unfolding, Balmer’s account uncovers the roots of evangelical watchwords like “religious freedom” and “family values” while getting to the truth of how this movement began - explaining, in part, what it has become.

©2021 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (P)2021 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

So glad that I listened!

It truly helped me to understand how we got here as a country, and the rise of Christian Nationalism

Religious Right False Prophets.

I Never Knew You

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7: 21-23

Familiar to me but a good overview

This includes some good info. It was the perfect length- succinct and not repetitive. I recommend it.

Balmer nails it…

Randall Balmer excavates the true underpinnings of the religious right, which turn out to be far more rooted in racism (especially in response to the desegregation of schools) than the glorious antiabortion “abolitionist” narrative that is their preferred mythology. Students and political enthusiasts will appreciate the receipts that Balmer brings to this more honest analysis of the origins of a movement that affects all of our lives. As a person of faith who is concerned about the damage inflicted by these networks on our national and religious fabric, I am grateful for this contribution. The narration is excellent and the work is appropriately concise while conveying a wealth of detail.

Excellent!

A concise and clear explication of the true roots of our curren Christian Right. Sets the record straight once and for all. Excellent writing, engaging narration. Will definitely explore more by same author & narrator.