Darren Dochuk - From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism

Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

NEW YORK LONDON

Copyright 2011 by Darren Dochuk

Portions of chapter 4 were adapted from Darren Dochuk, Christ and the CIO:
Blue-Collar Evangelicalisms Crisis of Conscience and Political Turn in Early
Cold War California, International Labor and Working-Class History 74
(Fall 2008), published by Cambridge University Press.

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First published as a Norton paperback 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dochuk, Darren.

From Bible belt to sunbelt : plain-folk religion, grassroots politics,
and the rise of evangelical conservatism / Darren Dochuk. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-0-393-06682-1 (hardcover)

1. Christian conservatismCalifornia, SouthernHistory20th century.
2. EvangelicalismCalifornia, SouthernHistory20th century.
3. California, SouthernChurch history20th century. I. Title.

BR555.C2D63 2011

277.949082dc22

2010032740

ISBN 978-0-393-33904-8

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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More praise for From Bible Belt to Sunbelt

Winner of the Ellis W. Hawley Prize

The nation is today color coded into red and blue. In this tour de force of research, narrative, and analysis, a brilliant young historian chronicles how Southern California served as the matrix for this enduring bifurcation. Beneath the sunshine and the palm trees, uprooted evangelicals experienced a Great Awakening that transformed American politics in our era.

Kevin Starr, University of Southern California

With narrative authority and sparkling insight, Darren Dochuk explains how and why Southern California became the crucible of the Christian Right. Anyone who wants to understand the history of modern American conservatism should read this book.

Michael Kazin, author of
A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan
and coeditor of Dissent

Darren Dochuks fortunate readers are in for some surprises as well as for enlightenment. The story of the Dust Bowl and the migration to Southern California during the Great Depression, usually told through the left-wing tale of Tom Joad, turns out to be prologue to the rise of a vital segment of the modern Christian Right.

Sean Wilentz, author of
The Rise of American Democracy

Darren Dochuk has painted a vista from which unfolds the creation of Reagans nation, as the California dreams of Southern evangelicals become the American dreams of Sunbelt conservatives. Through the guiding telescope of Dochuks prose, we meet a fascinating cast of characters destined to be staples in future tellings of this important story. This much-anticipated book is well worth the wait.

Steven P. Miller, author of
Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South

Combining the research skills of an academic and the literary grace of a popular historian, Darren Dochuk makes a convincing and provocative case that Californias revival of Southern evangelicalism transformed twentieth-century American politics. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the direct lineage from the New Deal to the New Right. With characters like Billy Graham and Ronald Reagan, Pat Boone and Barry Goldwater, it is a riveting and cautionary tale.

Sally Denton, author of
The Pink Lady: The Many Lives
of Helen Gahagan Douglas

Wonderfully written and expertly researched.... From Bible Belt to Sunbelt is an outstanding work of scholarship and an entertaining, engrossing read.

Randall J. Stephens, Books and Culture

The great strength of Darren Dochuks book lies in his discovery of New Christian Right origins in postwar California. He skillfully traces a continuous narrative stretching from the Dust Bowl to Ronald Reagan, and demonstrates with prodigious research how this narrative fits into a much broader American canvas of demographic, political, economic, and ideological change.

Mark A. Noll, New Republic

Very impressive.... From Bible Belt to Sunbelt is the product of prodigious research.

Randall Balmer, Christian Century

Sweeping and ambitious are two words that will appear in many reviews of Darren Dochuks From Bible Belt to Sunbelt , and they both are appropriate. Dochuk... provides a meticulously researched and well-written narrative of the origins of the Religious Right.

Kentucky Historical Society

A colorful, intriguing, yet academic study of an important though little-researched process, this work is strongly recommended for students of American religion and politics.

Lisa Richmond, Library Journal

A lucid history.... Well-written and -documented, a supremely helpful guide in sorting out how we arrived at that odd state of affairs.

Kirkus Reviews , starred review

Dochuk... well understands the pivotal role religion plays in shaping Americas cultural self-image, and like Sharlet and Lindsay, among others, in this book he breaks with a long tradition of historical writing that has monolithically depicted evangelical believers as backward-looking prophets of cultural reaction.

Chris Lehmann, The Nation

An erudite and persuasive account of how southern evangelical migrants transformed Californias culture and politics.... Several aspects of Darrens book thoroughly impress me.... Both specialists and students will find From Bible Belt to Sunbelt engaging and thought-provoking.

John G. Turner, Religion in American History

Dochuk excels in his profiles of early plain-folk settlers and their world, and the tangled personal, institutional, and doctrinal motives of the ministry that served them.... [A] fascinating portrait of the early Christian right.

Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly

This study is richly evidenced, strikingly written.... [A] wonderful picture of how evangelical conservatism originally arose in California below the radar of the media or political elites.

Martin Durham,
Journal of American History

[ From Bible Belt to Sunbelt ] is well written, a treat to read, and should be read by any serious scholar of American evangelicalism.

Malcolm D. Magee, Journal of Church and State

Dochuks work is a fascinating narrative of the interplay between politics and religion, region and nation.

Sara M. Patterson,
Western Historical Quarterly

With his thorough and seemingly exhaustive research, Dochuk has done an incredible job of documenting the complex process by which conservative evangelicals helped reshape modern America.

Aaron L. Haberman, Historically Speaking

The importance of Dochuks stellar work is not only in locating the birth of the Christian Right in Southern California but also in explaining why it spread when it did and how it spread across the Sunbelt. Indeed, this work is so artfully textured that any attempt to summarize can hardly do it justice.