Religious right

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The term Religious Right is a broad label applied by scholars, journalists, and critics to a number of political and religious movements and groups that primarily are active around conservative and right wing social issues.[1]William Martin suggests that the terms "Religious Right" and "New Christian Right" can refer to the movement in the United States that began to mobilize in the 1960s.[2]Other, however, use the term to describe a coalition of religious conservatives that extends beyond Christianity.[3]

The terms Religious Right and Christian Right are considered pejorative by some conservative critics, who suggest it is used primarily by the political left.[4][5][6] (see Christianophobia and Dominionism).

The disagreements between the Religious Right and feminist, gay and social liberal activists are sometimes referred to as the Culture War.[7]

Contents

[edit] Beyond the Christian Right

The Christian Right in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, has made efforts to reach out to Orthodox Jews and Muslim social conservatives, especially in building coalitions against abortion and same-sex marriage.

At the United Nations level, conservative interfaith NGOs co-operate over issues of gender, reproductive and sexual health, lesbian and gay rights, family and bioethical policies. The World Congress of Families is one particularly important interfaith forum for that purpose.[8]

In the case of Muslim social conservatives, the World Congress of Families may be difficult to sustain as a forum for conservative Christian/Islamic co-belligerency, given increasing US-Iranian international tensions, the 2003 Iraq War and Israel-Palestine conflict, which means that foreign policy overshadows any shared social conservatism that might attract conservative interfaith co-operation.

Sectors of the Christian Right and Jewish Right, especially in North America, have united over the issue of Israeli statehood. To quote influential American Evangelical Christian Jerry Falwell, “I have always said that America’s Bible Belt is Israel’s safety net.”[9] Evangelical tourism remains an important aspect of the Israeli economy, and several North American Christian groups continue to provide strong support for Israeli militarism, a tendency called Christian Zionism.

[edit] See also

Contrast: Christian left

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Linda Kintz and Julia Lesage, eds., Culture, Media, and the Religious Right. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  2. ^ [Martin, William. (1996). With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America. New York: Broadway Books.
  3. ^ Butler, Jennifer S. 2006. Born Again: The Christian Right Globalized. University of Michigan Press; London: Pluto Press.
  4. ^ Geroge Weigel, Politics Without God, Basic Books, 2005
  5. ^ Stanley Kurtz, [[1]
  6. ^ Jon Ward, "Liberals gather to plumb depths of Christian Right" (May 3, 2005 issue).
  7. ^ Green, John C., James L. Guth, Corwin E. Smidt, and Lyman A. Kellstedt. (1996). Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches from the Front. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
  8. ^ Butler, Jennifer S. 2006. Born Again: The Christian Right Globalized. London: Pluto Press.
  9. ^ Horowitz, Craig Israel's Christian Soldiers, New York Magazine, September 29, 2003.

[edit] References

  • Armstrong, Karen (2001). The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-39169-1
  • Brasher, Brenda E. (2001). The Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92244-5
  • Diamond, Sara. 1995. Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. New York: Guilford.
  • Horowitz, Craig. September 29, 2003. Israel's Christian Soldiers. New York: New York Magazine.
  • Marsden; George M. (1980). Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 Oxford University Press, ([2])
  • Marty, Martin E. and R. Scott Appleby (eds.). The Fundamentalism Project. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Martin, William. (1996). With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, New York: Broadway Books.
  • Ribuffo, Leo P. (1983). The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Shapiro, Ben. Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth (ISBN 0-7852-6148-6), 2004.
  • Shapiro, Ben. Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future (ISBN 0-89526-016-6), Regnery, 2005.
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