Marcia Pally - White Evangelicals and Right-Wing Populism: How Did We Get Here?

Trumpism and evangelicalism might seem like strange bed fellows. But Pally shows it's a match made in heaven. Far from a mere marriage of convenience, the confluence of right-wing populism and conservative evangelicalism is a matter of cultural and political affinities with deep roots in American history.

Philip Gorski,Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies, Yale University

This accessible and compelling book reviews the contemporary relationship between white evangelicals and right-wing populism, showing the assemblage of ideas, concerns, and historical factors that brought this intersection into being. By setting this relationship in a broader historical context, Pally shows how this intersection is neither inevitable nor necessary.

Luke Bretherton,Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral & Political Theology, Duke University

An illuminating journey down the rabbit hole of white evangelical support for far-right authoritarian populism in the US. Pally combines rigorous scholarship with clear argument to show that all seemingly secular politics is theological in a certain guise. A realignment away from both liberal technocracy and demagogic populism will require a radical yet traditional religious revival.

Adrian Pabst,Professor of Politics at the University of Kent and author of Postliberal Politics

How did Americas white evangelicals, from often progressive history, come to right-wing populism? Addressing populism requires understanding how its historico-cultural roots ground present politics. How have the very qualities that contributed much to American vibrancyan anti-authoritarian government-wariness and energetic community-buildingturned, under conditions of distress, to defensive, us-them worldviews?

Readers will gain an understanding of populism and of the socio-political and religious history from which populism draws its us-them policies and worldview. The book ponders the tragic cast of the white evangelical story: (i) the distorting effects of economic and way-of-life duress on the understanding of history and present circumstances and (ii) the tragedy of choosing us-them solutions to duress that wont relieve it, leaving the duress in place. Readers will trace the trajectory from economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses to solutions in populist, us-them binaries. They will explore the robust white evangelical contribution to civil society but also to racism, xenophobia, and sexism. White evangelicals not in the ranks of the righttheir worldview and activismare discussed in a final chapter.

This book is valuable reading for students of political and social sciences as well as anyone interested in US politics.

Marcia Pally teaches at New York University, USA, and held the Mercator Guest Professorship in the Theology Faculty at Humboldt University-Berlin, Germany, where she remains an annual guest professor.

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For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Focus-on-Religion/book-series/RFR

Marcia Pally

First published 2022

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2022 Marcia Pally

The right of Marcia Pally to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Names: Pally, Marcia, author.

Title: White evangelicals and right-wing populism : how did we get here? / Marcia Pally.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge focus on religion | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2021061269 (print) | LCCN 2021061270 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032134826 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032134833 (pbk) | ISBN 9781003229452 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Evangelicalism--United States. | Christians, White--United States. | Christianity and politics--United States. | White supremacy movements--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Populism--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Populism--United States. Classification: LCC BR517 .P35 2022 (print) | LCC BR517 (ebook) | DDC 261.0973--dc23/eng/20220207

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061269

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061270

ISBN: 978-1-032-13482-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-13483-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-22945-2 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003229452

Typeset in Times New Roman

by MPS Limited, Dehradun

DOI: 10.4324/9781003229452-1

Among those who on January 6, 2021 rioted at the US Capitol building claiming that the 2020 election had been stolen from Donald Trump was a small group that stormed the Senate chamber. Removing his horned helmet, a bare-chested shaman figure named Jacob Chansley led the group in prayer:

Thank you heavenly father for gracing us with this opportunity to allow us to exercise our rights, to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs. We will not allow America, the American way of the United States of America to go down Thank you divine, omniscient and omnipresent creator God for blessing each and every one of us here and now. In Christ's holy name, we pray.

Among the things that this prayer expresses are the conflation of Christianity with an American way of life that protects rights (not God's word) and combats tyrants, the communists, and the globalists. In the name of