History Faculty Publications

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

12-2011

Publication Source

Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture

Abstract

There has been no end of predictions that the demise of the Religious Right is imminent. Over the past three decades, proof of its impending collapse has included the televangelist scandals, Pat Robertson’s failure to secure the Republican presidential nomination, the election and re-election of Bill Clinton, and the emergence of “young” evangelicals who refuse to toe the Religious Right line (this one keeps popping up).

The latest version involves the notion that economically focused libertarians of the Tea Party will inevitably find themselves in heated conflict with evangelical and fundamentalist social conservatives, thus challenging the power of the Religious Right in the Republican Party (nevermind the extensive overlap between the two groups).

While Daniel Williams’s God’s Own Party was published just as the Tea Party phenomenon was emerging, this lively book makes clear that it is foolish to take seriously predictions that the Religious Right will soon fade into obscurity. As the author observes in the introduction, the “Christian Right of the late twentieth century [is] not a passing fad,” primarily because—here is the book’s thesis—whatever defeats conservative Protestants in America may endure, they “cannot turn back from either their Republican partisanship or their political campaigns” (9).

Inclusive pages

965-967

ISBN/ISSN

0009-6407

Comments

The document available for download is the author's accepted manuscript, provided in compliance with the publisher's policy on self-archiving. To read the version of record, use the DOI provided.

Citation information for the book reviewed:

Daniel K. Williams. God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010; ISBN: 9780195340846.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Volume

80

Issue

4

Download
Link to published version

COinS