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Gender, Race, and Sexuality in the American Christian Right

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Women & Others

Part of the book series: Signs of Race ((SOR))

Abstract

There’s no question that white evangelical Protestants, especially in the South, were not only on the sidelines but were on the wrong side of the most central struggle for civil justice of the twentieth century, namely the struggle for civil rights …[U]ntil the pro-family, religious conservative movement becomes a truly biracial or multi-racial movement, it will not have moral resonance with the American people, because we were so wrong at that time. I want the Christian Coalition to be a truly rainbow coalition. I want it to be black, brown, yellow, white. I want it to bring Christians of all faith traditions, all denominations, and all races and colors together. I don’t think that’s going to happen over night. It’s going to take years, but we’re committed to it.1

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Notes

  1. Quoted in William Martin, With God on Our Side (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996), 365–66.

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  2. There are many definitions of the Christian Right in circulation. For purposes of this paper, I define the Christian right as evangelical Christians who tend toward conservative politics (although they may disagree about the extent to which they think they should engage in politics). By “evangelical,” I refer primarily to Protestants who generally subscribe to the five fundamentals of faith that have served as rallying points for evangelicalism: Biblical inerrancy; deity of Christ; substitutionary atonement; bodily resurrection; and the second coming of Christ. This definition is inclusive of Pentecostals and those groups that do not trace their roots to the fundamentalist/modernist debates of the 1920s. I am not including the more explicitly racist Christian movements, such as Christian identity groups. See Ronald Nash, Evangelicals in America (Nashville: Abingdon, 1987); Edward Dobson, “Standing Together on Absolutes.” United Evangelical Action 44 (September–October 1985): 4–10; William Trollinger “How Should Evangelicals Understand Fundamentalism?” United Evangelical Action 44 (September–October 1985): 7–9; Donald Dayton, The Variety of American Evangelicalism (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991); Joel Carpenter, Revive Us Again (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Harold Ockenga, “From Fundamentalism: Through New Evangelicalism to Evangelicalism,” in Evangelical Roots, ed. K. Kantzer (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishing Company, 1968). In addition, I use the term “Christian Right” loosely, understanding that many evangelicals support conservative politics while not necessarily identifying with the label “Christian Right.” James Guth, “Southern Baptist Clergy: Vanguard of the Christian Right? ” in The New Christian Right, ed. R. Liebman and R. Wuthnow (New York: Aldine, 1983); Christian Smith, Christian America? (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Robert Zwier, Born-Again Politics (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1982). The reason such a loose definition is appropriate for this study is that I am demarcating people who take part in a shared community of discourse about politics and religion even if they disagree about whether or not to term themselves members of the “Christian Right.”

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Authors
  1. Andrea Smith
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida State University, USA

    Celia R. Daileader (Professor of English) (Professor of English)

  2. University of Alabama, USA

    Rhoda E. Johnson (Professor of Women’s Studies) (Professor of Women’s Studies)

  3. Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

    Amilcar Shabazz (Chair of the W.E.B. Du Bois) (Chair of the W.E.B. Du Bois)

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© 2007 Celia R. Daileader, Rhoda E. Johnson, and Amilcar Shabazz

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Smith, A. (2007). Gender, Race, and Sexuality in the American Christian Right. In: Daileader, C.R., Johnson, R.E., Shabazz, A. (eds) Women & Others. Signs of Race. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230607323_8

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