Religion, Politics, and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Powers in American Empire

by Mark Lewis Taylor

Princeton theologian Mark Taylor analyzes right-wing Christian movements in the United States amid the powers of religion, politics, empire, and corporate classes in post-9/11 USA. The real gift of Taylor's book is his argument that this militant Christian faith must be viewed against a backdrop of the American political romanticism and corporatist liberalism of U.S. past and present. Taylor uses the best of cultural and historical studies, while deftly drawing lessons for American readers from theologian Paul Tillich's analysis of power and religion during the rise of fascism and nationalism in Germany of the 1930s. The result is an innovative framework for interpreting how Christian nationalists, Pentagon war planners and corporate institutions today are forging alliances in the U.S. that have dramatic and destructive global impact. Moving beyond lament, Taylor also leaves readers with a new romance of revolutionary traditions and a new more radical liberalism, revitalizing American visions of spirit that are both prophetic and public for U.S. residents today.

Genres: Theology, Politics

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Mark Lewis Taylor is Princeton Seminary’s Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Theology and Culture. He earned his M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. A member of the Presbyterian Church, he frequently teaches and lectures in churches and supports church communities in their efforts to organize on justice and peace issues. Since 1987, he has studied regularly in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico, where he analyzes the cultural and political dynamics of the churches as they move closer to a contextualized Mayan theology that also facilitates resistance to military repression. He is coordinator for Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal. His regular teaching duties focus on the theologies of Paul Tillich and Gustavo Gutierrez, with full courses also on white racism as theological challenge, feminist and womanist theologies, empire and capital in theological perspective, and cultural-political hermeneutics.