Christian Right Archives - Public Seminar

North America

The New Political Theology

Disestablishing the Establishment Clause

September 24, 2025 • by Arthur Goldhammer

The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Strictly ...

Education

The Evangelical Capture of the Republican Party and Its Implications for Academia

On evangelical anti-intellectualism in the Republican Party

August 28, 2025 • by David A. Hollinger

For the first time in American history, a major political party has a vested interest in a low-education electorate. This astonishing fact has inspired remarkably little discussion. Religion has a lot do with it. The Republican Party courted evangelical Protestants for decades, but the client eventually captured the patron. The party ...

The Evangelical Capture of the Republican Party and Its Implications for Academia

Podcast

When We Lose, We Win

Episode 60: Talking with historian Brenda Wineapple about civil rights, culture wars, the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” trial and her new book, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted A Nation

October 10, 2024 • by Claire Potter

In 2016, white evangelical Christians showed up at the polls in force for Donald J. Trump, part of a diverse movement that defied expectations to sweep him into the White House. In the past decade, scholars and journalists have spilled a lot of ink on what seemed initially like a ...

North America

The Legacy of the Catholic New Right in Project 2025

The Heritage Foundation returns to its roots

August 26, 2024 • by Chelsea Ebin

For the past four decades, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has published policy proposals ahead of presidential elections. The most recent installment of the “Mandate for Leadership” series, published in 2023, is a 900-page collection of essays written by a host of right-wing thinkers and advised by more ...

The Legacy of the Catholic New Right in Project 2025

Democracy

The Question About Religion Someone Should Have Asked Amy Coney Barrett

This nomination brings a long-cherished Christian political project to fruition

October 15, 2020 • by Rose Thomas Bannister

I was taught at church, at school, and at home that America is a Christian nation. Judge Barrett has advocated against abortion rights, and she has two adopted children. I too was an adopted child, and in my unofficial career as a child preacher, I once sermonized that God had rescued ...