The document summarizes the rise of the Christian Right in American politics from the 1920s to 1992 in three main periods: 1) From the 1920s-1970s, American fundamentalism reacted against secularism and modernism, culminating in the Scopes Trial defeat but finding new life through Billy Graham. Graham fused evangelicalism with politics. 2) In the 1970s, the Christian Right mobilized around social issues like abortion and ERA in reaction to the McGovern campaign and feminist movement. Phyllis Schlafly led opposition to the ERA. 3) From 1980-1992, the Christian Right became a major Republican constituency as Reagan and Bush embraced their agenda on issues like prayer in school

1. “God’s Army”: The Rise of the
Christian Right in American
Politics, 1925-1992
By Blake A. Ellis, Ph.D.

2. What Exactly Is the Christian
Right?

3. My Definition:
• “A group of voters motivated primarily
by their religious beliefs and concern for
social issues. The group includes
Protestant evangelicals, orthodox
Catholics and conservative members of
mainline Protestant denominations.”

4. Why Study the Christian Right?

5. American Fundamentalism in the 1920s:
Forerunner to the Christian Right

6. What Were Fundamentalists
Reacting Against?
• The widespread acceptance of evolutionary
biology
• Higher criticism of the Bible
• Most importantly, the breakdown of the
“evangelical consensus” that dominated
American politics and culture in the 1800s

7. The Scopes Trial of 1925: The
Death of Fundamentalism?

8. Christian Century Editors
(1927):
• “Anybody should be able to see that
the whole fundamentalist movement
was hollow and artificial and wholly
lacking in qualities of constructive
achievement or survival.”
• Was this a correct assessment?

9. Billy Graham and the
Resurgence of Evangelicals

10. Graham’s Contribution:
• Fusion of Patriotism and Evangelical Religion
• Willingness to Embrace Electoral Politics
• 1960: Tacit Support for Richard Nixon (R)
• 1963-1968: Friendship with Lyndon Johnson (D)
• 1968-1973: Informal Adviser to Richard Nixon (R)
• Opposition to Abortion Rights and LGBT
Rights(Consistent Throughout His Career)

11. 1972: Democrats Embrace
Social Liberalism

12. 1972 Democratic Platform
• Included a full section on the rights of women
• Embraced family planning and birth control
• Affirmed “the right to be different.”
• Stated, “Americans should be free to make their
own choice of lifestyle and private habits
without being subject to discrimination or
prosecution.”

13. McGovern received 20 percent of the
evangelical vote, while losing a landslide
election to Richard Nixon.

14. National Women’s Conference,
1977: A Turning Point

15. Houston: An Irreparable Split
• The convention easily approved a 25-point plan that included
support for things like Social Security benefits for housewives
and an increase in funding for rape prevention.
• But three fundamental issues split the convention between its
liberal wing (roughly 80 percent) and its conservative wing
(roughly 20 percent):
• The Equal Rights Amendment
• Abortion Rights
• Lesbian Rights

16. Phyllis Schlafly and Anti-ERA Politics

17. The Role of Women
• Phyllis Schlafly: “I remember the impassioned pleas by
Betty Friedan . . . Saying, ‘Yes, we have to work with the
lesbians and they have to be part of our movement.’ They did
that on national television, and the American people saw it
and they didn’t like it.”
• Jerry Falwell: “We believe in opening the door for our
women, helping them with their coats, providing them with
their living, and protecting them from their enemies. We are
against the Equal Rights Amendment because we believe it
degrades womanhood, and may one day cause our women to
use unisex toilets and fight in the trenches on the battlefield,
where men belong.”

18. 1980: The Christian Right
Stuns the Nation

19. 1980: Reagan Woos Evangelicals
• Reagan on Being “Born Again:” In
the religion of the church that I was raised
in . . . you were baptized when you
yourself declared that you were, as the
Bible says, as the Bible puts it, that that is
being born again. And so, it was, within
the context of the Bible, yes, by being
baptized.”

20. Donald Devine, Reagan Strategist
Two Key Constituencies: Orthodox Catholics and
Evangelical Protestants

21. The Reagan/Bush Era, 1980-
1992

22. The 1992 RNC: Christian Right
in Control

23. Key Quotations:
• Marilyn Quayle: “Democrats have placed their
faith in the promises of the liberation
movements . . . They’re disappointed because
most women do not wish to be liberated from
their essential natures as women.”
• Dan Quayle: “Americans try to raise their
children to understand right and wrong, only to
be told that every so-called ‘alternative lifestyle’
is morally equivalent. That is wrong.”

24. Key Quotations:
• Pat Robertson (Before the Convention): “Feminism
encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their
children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and
become lesbians.”
• Pat Robertson (From the Convention Floor): Argued
that Democratic candidate Bill Clinton “wants to give
your thirteen-year-old daughter the choice without
your consent to destroy the life of her unborn baby.”
• Argued that Democrats wanted to “destroy the
traditional family” and promote “abortion on
demand.”

25. Key Quotations:
• Pat Buchanan: “There is a religious war going on for
the soul of the country that is just as critical to the
nation we will become as the Cold War itself.”
• Pat Buchanan: George H. W. Bush supported
“freedom of choice for religious schools . . . against
the amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should
have the same standing in the law as married men
and women . . . for right to life, voluntary prayer in
the public schools, and against putting women into
combat.”

26. National Reaction:
• Texas Journalist Molly Ivins:
•“To be fair, the speech
probably sounded better in
its original German.”

27. The Christian Right in the Age of
Obama: Is It Dying or Thriving?

28. 1976 Electoral Map

29. 2012 Electoral Map