tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post7848232286234560531..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: The Secular Roots of the Culture WarsPaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-83583573431930567902015-03-03T23:40:04.436-07:002015-03-03T23:40:04.436-07:00I've enjoyed your comments to and fro on this,...I've enjoyed your comments to and fro on this, Benji.<br /><br /><i>At the same time, Hunter's work as a whole in regards to these conversations is so much more expansive than his Culture Wars text of the early 1990s- a text built largely on the empirical data and qualitative argumentation of fellow Sociologist Robert Wuthnow.</i><br /><br />I'm always happy to see "data" raise its hoary head in these discussions of what can only be seen as sociology. The highest peaks and lowest valleys tend to get the notoriety, but there's a lot of land and sea in between Mt. Everest and the Marianas Trench.<br /><br />A year after The Summer of Love, Richard Nixon was elected president. Three Novembers after The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, Nixon won 49 states, Gallup polls showing strong approval of his handling of the Vietnam problem.<br /><br />There's an art to these things but there must also be a science.<br /><br /><i>The link between 1960s unrest and the recent religious past as understood through the "culture wars" framework certainly needs more emphasis in regards to causation and context, but this link is also tenuous and complex in regards to the emergence of the Christian Right and the subsequent anxiety-ridden abhorrence expressed by the political and religious left. </i><br /><br />The warnings of an impending "American Theocracy" have remained unrealized. It's not as though Jerry Falwell left behind a single memorable quote or coherent idea. His model of "leadership" was a classic example of finding a parade and standing in front of it. <br /><br />[Francis Schaeffer was actually the intellectual godfather of all that, that traditionalists should make common cause despite doctrinal differences.]<br /><br />The culture war may be good for political fundraising appeals, but American society sits sloppily between Everest and the Marianas, at worst "slouching toward Gomorrah," at best [as Steven Pinker notes] we're murdering each other at a vastly lower rate than any other time in human history.<br /><br />We can safely call that "progress." The view of the Culture War from 30,000 feet is that as wars go, it's the best one ever.<br />Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-45081390981643634112015-02-27T10:30:03.572-07:002015-02-27T10:30:03.572-07:00FYI: This essay has been cross-posted at the US In...FYI: This essay has been cross-posted at the US Intellectual History blog; you can follow the growing debate there:<br /><br />http://s-usih.org/2015/02/the-secular-roots-of-the-culture-wars.html#comment-33236<br /><br />Mark T. Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687874101232569510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-18161155919113712512015-02-25T06:44:43.175-07:002015-02-25T06:44:43.175-07:00Here here, Professor Petro! Me too. In my estimati...Here here, Professor Petro! Me too. In my estimation, this statement by Professor Hartman gets the ball rolling when it comes to both method and the historiography of the culture wars, "That Hunter gave us a vocabulary and an analytic model for understanding this new cultural and political polarization is admirable. But Hunter does nothing to shed light on how the sixties gave birth to the culture wars."<br />The link between 1960s unrest and the recent religious past as understood through the "culture wars" framework certainly needs more emphasis in regards to causation and context, but this link is also tenuous and complex in regards to the emergence of the Christian Right and the subsequent anxiety-ridden abhorrence expressed by the political and religious left. American Studies scholar Axel R. Schäfer has written some very compelling treatments of this period that question the all but assumed dichotomy between countercultural sentiment and evangelical sensibilities in the 1960s, something that Professor Hartman addresses through his criticisms of Hunter. Locating the origins or beginnings of such culture wars beyond the 1960s is also debated by historians such as Barry Hankins and Matt Sutton.<br />My concern with the discussion thus far is terminology, particularly when it comes to the binary of religious/secular. Emphasizing the role of neoconservative thought in shaping the terms of debate within the culture wars themselves is a significant contribution to the literature, yet this contribution comes at the expense of naming the 1960s as "secular," especially in light of all of the work being done on these terms and their histories. Additionally, these terms are extremely important for my own work on the largely unified response of folks like Norman Lear and others against the insidious forces of the Christian Right (I would also argue that the anxiety assigned to early and mid-century conservative Protestants by folks like Lipset, Hofstadter, and Lear himself is mislabeled. If anything, it was the other way around).<br />I think Professor Prothero has a point when he contends that such debates took place among "religious people," but I'm not sure we can read the culture wars as defined by Hartman back in time to 1800. For me, Hunter's framework is certainly limited in the ways identified by Professor Hartman, but the text itself is so much more valuable beyond its somewhat presentist statements and concerns as a Sociologist of American Religion. At the same time, Hunter's work as a whole in regards to these conversations is so much more expansive than his Culture Wars text of the early 1990s- a text built largely on the empirical data and qualitative argumentation of fellow Sociologist Robert Wuthnow.<br />I'm very excited about the upcoming texts from Petro, White, Hartman, Prothero, and others. Can't wait!Benji Rolskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16920224837199008239noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-14175073435439824412015-02-23T11:38:51.621-07:002015-02-23T11:38:51.621-07:00Andrew, thanks for the link to your piece! Along w...Andrew, thanks for the link to your piece! Along with Heather White's book -- which is going to make huge waves in the historiography of sexuality and American religion -- my book (After the Wrath of God, due out this summer with OUP) also tries to work across the common divisions of the culture wars. I found the term morality quite key here, as it served -- especially in discussions of sexuality and AIDS -- as a key point for translation between historically secular and religious forms of argument, in large measure, I argue, because it belongs to the vocabulary of both. <br /><br />Very excited to see historians thinking seriously about the 1980s and 1990s (in addition to the longue duree that Steve's writing about!). Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01057837383151039398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-50998418045946754432015-02-23T10:38:08.333-07:002015-02-23T10:38:08.333-07:00Thanks for the comment Hal. Yes I deal with the de...Thanks for the comment Hal. Yes I deal with the debates over teaching evolution versus creationism in my chapter on public schooling. I especially focus on the conservative legal struggle to inject creationism into the classroom in the 80s and 90s, and how their strategies and conceptions of church-state changed as a result of these struggles. Andrew Hartmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522689516113106871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-6100971037618975682015-02-23T10:11:49.798-07:002015-02-23T10:11:49.798-07:00This sounds intriguing. Personally it's the ...This sounds intriguing. Personally it's the creation/evolution divide that I find endlessly fascinating, and frankly shameful: polls show the numbers actually on the increase, who are anti-science. Do you talk about that at all?? Finally, surely most readers on here already know: but Hunter's book TO CHANGE THE WORLD is stellar: and I think very convincing about the alienation you mention: which he describes as a sort of Nietzschean resentiment. His account of the Neo-Anabaptists is terrific! -hbAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10274479360004493643noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-41795841976876291192015-02-23T09:52:48.254-07:002015-02-23T09:52:48.254-07:00Heather: Thanks for adding to the growing historio...Heather: Thanks for adding to the growing historiography of the culture wars--I look forward to reading your book.<br /><br />Stephen: I think you are exactly correct when thinking about the culture wars in terms of the longue durée. The ongoing debate over normative Americanism was almost always a debate within and between religious discourses when the nation was overwhelmingly religious. My book however is about the "culture wars" proper, if you will--the shouting matches of the 80s and 90s. This more specific and recent history was on the one hand more about the secular-religious divide than ever before, but as I also argue (in this post and in the book) less about religion at all. Or rather, the genuine alienation that many conservative Christians felt about secular modernity was wrapped up in their anxieties about the menacing hordes. Whereas someone like James Davison Hunter only really focused on the alienation part, I tie these two threads together, thus putting race and gender front and center. This is why I put so much historical emphasis on the neoconservatives.Andrew Hartmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522689516113106871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-5931962478446065982015-02-23T08:51:47.730-07:002015-02-23T08:51:47.730-07:00Thanks, Andrew. If you take a long view of the cul...Thanks, Andrew. If you take a long view of the culture wars (as a perennial in U.S. history) then the secular/religious divide breaks down almost immediately. I had thought I was going to call my book "Jefferson vs. Jesus" until I figured out that culture wars in the longue duree are battles AMONG religious people--between Protestants and Catholics, for example, or Protestants and Mormons. Only recently has the "religious right" turned on "secular humanism."<br />Stephen Protherohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05604867724366144202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-56380826514589822092015-02-23T08:46:15.717-07:002015-02-23T08:46:15.717-07:00Looking forward to reading this and other efforts ...Looking forward to reading this and other efforts to reassess the culture wars. I'll have my own book in the mix this fall, which highlights liberal Protestant influences on both sides of pro/anti gay politics. UNC press, _Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights_Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-35281400084058941002015-02-23T08:07:13.935-07:002015-02-23T08:07:13.935-07:00Thanks to you both. Indeed it is a boom year for ...Thanks to you both. Indeed it is <a href="http://s-usih.org/2015/01/a-boom-year-in-culture-wars-historiography.html" rel="nofollow">a boom year for culture wars historiography</a>. Andrew Hartmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522689516113106871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-74305878652865171372015-02-23T07:09:22.033-07:002015-02-23T07:09:22.033-07:00Can't wait to read this book! This seems to be...Can't wait to read this book! This seems to be a moment for historians thinking through/past the culture wars -- Natalia Mehlman Petrzela's Classroom Wars and Stephen Prothero's Why Liberals Win are also due out soon.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01057837383151039398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-30486567424194355542015-02-23T06:31:39.822-07:002015-02-23T06:31:39.822-07:00Really looking forward to reading the book, Andrew...Really looking forward to reading the book, Andrew!Trevor Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09152840020978882789noreply@blogger.com