In a national climate that blurs political and religious lines, then, the overwhelming support for Republicans amongst evangelical Christians indicates that the party’s appeals to the Christian right have been largely successful.
However, it contradicts national commitments to the separation of church and state and contrasts with the secularization experienced in other developed countries. Moreover, even when candidates seem to oppose traditional Christian values, like President Trump’s previously salacious lifestyle before assuming office, evangelicals continue to rally behind the Republican cause.
Why, then, do American Christianity and Republicanism seem so inextricably intertwined?
Much like religion, politics is as much, social as it is governmental. It is passed down from parent to child and is effectively innate, hereditary even, for many U.S. citizens. American Christianity in particular has, for centuries, developed alongside American politics so much so that their conflation would only be natural. Indeed, for many Christians, right-wing partisanship is just as generational, inveterate, and cultural as religion itself.
The U.S. tendency to run counter to international trends on religiosity has long fascinated social scientists. One idea popular among modern sociologists for a number of decades held that America’s unregulated and open religious “market” – where different faiths compete freely for new members without government interference – has fostered fertile ground for religious growth.
In fact, Americans pray more often, are more likely to attend weekly religious services and ascribe higher importance to faith in their lives than adults in other wealthy, Western democracies, such as Canada, Australia and most European states, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.
“In America, we don’t turn to government to restore our souls. We put our faith in the almighty God,” said President Donald Trump on the closing night of a Republican National Convention steeped in religious rhetoric.
Indeed, August 2020’s convention saw Sister Dierde Byrns espouse a vote for Trump as a vote against abortion and for “eternal life,” while others claimed that Democrats had immorally “challenged” the United States’ “Judeo-Christian tradition.”
Over the course of its four-day run, the RNC proceeded to welcome pastors, rabbis, nuns, even anti-abortion activists in attempts to further consolidate the Christian vote, a bloc that makes up 70% of the population, 64% of eligible voters, and 79% of those that lean Republican. This is a dangerous trend.
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.
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