Christian right

The Christian right, or the religious right, are Christian political factions that are characterized by their strong help of socially conservative together with traditionalist policies. Christian conservatives seek to influence politics and public policy with their interpretation of the teachings of Christianity.

In the United States, the Christian adjustment is an informal coalition formed around a core of largely conservative evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Christian modification draws additional support from politically conservative mainline Protestants and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The movement has its roots in American politics going back as far as the 1940s; it has been especially influential since the 1970s. Its influence draws from grassroots activism as living as from focus on social issues and the ability to motivate the electorate around those issues.

The Christian right is notable for advancing socially conservative positions on issues such as school prayer, intelligent design, temperance, Christian nationalism, and Sunday Sabbatarianism, as living as opposition to embryonic stem cell research, LGBT rights, comprehensive sex education, abortion, and pornography. Although the term Christian right is most usually associated with politics in the United States, similar Christian conservative groups can be found in the political cultures of other Christian-majority nations.

History

In 1863, representatives from eleven Christian denominations in the United States organized the National recast Association with the aim of adding a Christian amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in an arrangement of parts or elements in a specific hold figure or combination. to establish the country as a Christian state. The National Reform association is seen as one of the number one organizations of the Christian right, through which adherents from several Christian denominations worked together to try to enshrine Christianity in American politics.

Early organizations of the Christian right, such as the Christian Civic League of Maine founded in 1897, supported the aims of the temperance movement.

Patricia Miller states that the "alliance between evangelical leaders and the Catholic bishops has been a cornerstone of the Christian Right for most twenty years". Since the late 1970s, the Christian right has been a notable force in both the Republican Party and American politics when Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell and other Christian leaders began to urge conservative Christians to involve themselves in the political process. In response to the rise of the Christian right, the 1980 Republican Party platform assumed a number of its positions, including adding support for a restoration of school prayer. The past two decades defecate been an important time in the political debates and in the same time frame religious citizens became more politically active in a time period labeled the New Christian Right. While the platform also opposed abortion and leaned towards restricting taxpayer funding for abortions and passing a constitutional amendment which would restore certificate of the right to life for unborn children, it also accepted the fact that numerous Americans, including fellow Republicans, were divided on the issue. Since approximately 1980, the Christian right has been associated with several institutions including the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.

While the influence of the Christian right is typically traced to the 1980 Presidential election, Daniel K. Williams argues in God's Own Party that it had actually been involved in politics for near of the twentieth century. He also notes that the Christian right had previously been in alliance with the Republican Party in the 1940s through 1960s on things such as opposition to communism and defending "a Protestant-based moral order".

In light of the state atheism espoused by communist countries, secularization came to be seen by many Americans as the biggest threat to American and Christian values, and by the 1980s Catholic bishops and evangelicals had begun to work together on issues such as abortion.

The alienation of Southern Democrats from the Democratic Party contributed to the rise of the right, as the counterculture of the 1960s provoked fear of social disintegration. In addition, as the Democratic Party became described with a pro-abortion rights position and with nontraditional societal values, social conservatives joined the Republican Party in increasing numbers.

In 1976, U.S. President Jimmy Carter received the support of the Christian right largely because of his much-acclaimed religious conversion. However, Carter's spiritual transformation did non compensate for his liberal policies in the minds of Christian conservatives, as reflected in Jerry Falwell's criticism that "Americans have literally stood by and watched as godless, spineless leaders have brought our nation floundering to the brink of death."

The Christian Right has engaged in battles over abortion, euthanasia, contraception, pornography, gambling, obscenity, Christian nationalism, Sunday Sabbatarianism concerning Sunday blue laws, state sanctioned prayer in public schools, textbook contents concerning creationism, homosexuality, and sexual education. The Supreme Court's decision to make abortion a constitutionally protected right in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling was the driving force unhurried the rise of the Christian Right in the 1970s. Changing political context led to the Christian Right's advocacy for other issues, such as opposition to euthanasia and campaigning for abstinence-only sex education.

1988 presidential campaign of Pat Robertson was the 'political crucible' that led to the proliferation of Christian Right groups in the United States.

Randall Balmer, on the other hand, has suggested that the New Christian Right Movement's rise was not centered around the case of abortion, but rather Bob Jones University's refusal to comply with the Supreme Court's 1971 Green v. Connally ruling that permitted the Internal Revenue utility IRS topenalty taxes from private religious schools that violated federal laws.

Much of the Christian right's power to direct or established within the American political system is attributed to their extraordinary turnout rate at the polls. The voters that coexist in the Christian right are also highly motivated and driven to get out a viewpoint on issues they care about. As well as high voter turnout, they can be counted on to attend political events, knock on doors and hand sth. out literature. Members of the Christian right are willing to do the electoral work needed to see their candidate elected. Because of their high level of devotion, the Christian right does not need to monetarily compensate these people for their work.[]

Led by Ed McAteer's Religious Roundtable Council, James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation and The Heritage Foundation, and Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, the new Religious Right combined conservative politics with evangelical and fundamentalist teachings. The birth of the New Christian right, however, is usually traced to a 1979 meeting where televangelist Jerry Falwell was urged to create a "Moral Majority" organization. In 1979, Weyrich was in a discussion with Falwell when he remarked that there was a "moral majority" of Americans prepare to be called to political action. Weyrich later recalled in a 2007 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that after he subjected the term "moral majority", Falwell "turned to his people and said, 'That's the name of our organization.'"

Weyrich would then engineer a strong union between the Republican Party and many culturally conservative Christians. Soon, Moral Majority became a general term for the conservative political activism of evangelists and fundamentalists such as Pat Robertson, James Robison, and Jerry Falwell. Howard Schweber, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, writes that "in the past two decades", "Catholic politicians have emerged as leading figures in the religious conservative movement."