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White Evangelicals and Right-Wing Populism
How did America’s 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 vibrancy―an anti-authoritarian government-wariness and energetic community-building―turned, 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 (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 won’t 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 right―their worldview and activism―are 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.
148 pages, Paperback
Published January 29, 2024
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January 5, 2025
Marcia Pally, who holds a professorship in Multilingual Multicultural Studies at New York University, offers readers an excellent introduction to right-wing populism and to the close relationship that has developed between right-wing populists and white evangelical Christians in the United States. This relationship, the author notes, was neither preordained nor does it necessarily follow from evangelical teachings that historically emphasized biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism. In fact, until the second half of the twentieth century, most white evangelicals were associated with progressive causes, including the labor movement, the fight for universal public education, and various overseas liberation movements. Given this early history of moderate progressivism, why did evangelicals in the twentieth century increasingly embrace right-wing populism? This is the question that the author seeks to answer using historical, sociological, and cultural approaches.
Step one in the author’s analysis is to define populism. She defines it as “a way of understanding and responding to economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses that finds solution in us-them binaries, strong or soft, that draw in mediated ways from the historico-cultural background of the society where the populism is situated.” Populism can be found at both ends of the political spectrum. Moreover, it is not necessarily anti-democratic; as example, she cites the 1895 Populist Manifesto, Spain’s Podemos party, and Bernie Sander’s 2016 political campaign.
Having defined the term, she then identifies key features of US political and religious history, which under conditions of duress, may find expression in the us-them binaries of populism. These include the American experience of fleeing religious and political persecution and of frontier settlement, the slave system and post-reconstruction “lost cause” culture, the ethos of self-reliance, distrust of government and of outsiders. In short, the very qualities that contributed to US vibrancy, can under conditions of threat, give rise to us-them worldviews in which the community must be protected from perceived outsiders.
Chapter 3 identifies “the economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses” that many US citizens, including white evangelicals confront today. Like non-religious right-wing populists, she notes that white evangelicals in the 2016 and 2020 election cited economic reasons for voting for Trump, rather than ideological ones. In other words, fears about economic security, rather than concerns about abortion or the maintenance of traditional gender roles, pushed white evangelicals toward the Republican Party. The Republican Party under Trump was attractive, because rather than attribute the nation’s economic woes to abstract, complex developments, such as globalization, technological developments, or market fluctuations, it offered a simple explanation: It was “them”; they (immigrants) stole your jobs; they (elites) were part of a conspiracy to undermine the average US citizen and so forth.
For white evangelicals, this sense of having been betrayed by governing elites and cheated by outsiders, is reinforced by the specific political and religious experiences of white evangelicals; these experiences include the growing secularization of US society and changing gender roles and norms that threaten a loss of status for members of this community.
The final chapter provides a portrait of the twenty percent of white evangelicals who have not embraced right-wing populism and have taken steps to fight its spread within their ranks. This chapter, while informative, appears disconnected from the earlier chapters, as the author never explains why this group of evangelicals chooses not to follow most of their colleagues. What makes them different? Were they not subject to the same sources of duress? If so, why did this group embrace Kingdom Ethics/Christian humanism, rather than right-wing populism? And why have they been unsuccessful in convincing other evangelical groups to embrace an activism centered on helping the poor and protecting the environment, rather than a right-wing populism that demonizes the poor and immigrants? Are they perceived as elitist or outsiders within the evangelical community and if so, how did they go from being a majority to a minority within their community? Without a clear understanding of these internal dynamics, the synergy between white evangelicalism and right-wing populism cannot be fully understood nor can it be combatted.
Step one in the author’s analysis is to define populism. She defines it as “a way of understanding and responding to economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses that finds solution in us-them binaries, strong or soft, that draw in mediated ways from the historico-cultural background of the society where the populism is situated.” Populism can be found at both ends of the political spectrum. Moreover, it is not necessarily anti-democratic; as example, she cites the 1895 Populist Manifesto, Spain’s Podemos party, and Bernie Sander’s 2016 political campaign.
Having defined the term, she then identifies key features of US political and religious history, which under conditions of duress, may find expression in the us-them binaries of populism. These include the American experience of fleeing religious and political persecution and of frontier settlement, the slave system and post-reconstruction “lost cause” culture, the ethos of self-reliance, distrust of government and of outsiders. In short, the very qualities that contributed to US vibrancy, can under conditions of threat, give rise to us-them worldviews in which the community must be protected from perceived outsiders.
Chapter 3 identifies “the economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses” that many US citizens, including white evangelicals confront today. Like non-religious right-wing populists, she notes that white evangelicals in the 2016 and 2020 election cited economic reasons for voting for Trump, rather than ideological ones. In other words, fears about economic security, rather than concerns about abortion or the maintenance of traditional gender roles, pushed white evangelicals toward the Republican Party. The Republican Party under Trump was attractive, because rather than attribute the nation’s economic woes to abstract, complex developments, such as globalization, technological developments, or market fluctuations, it offered a simple explanation: It was “them”; they (immigrants) stole your jobs; they (elites) were part of a conspiracy to undermine the average US citizen and so forth.
For white evangelicals, this sense of having been betrayed by governing elites and cheated by outsiders, is reinforced by the specific political and religious experiences of white evangelicals; these experiences include the growing secularization of US society and changing gender roles and norms that threaten a loss of status for members of this community.
The final chapter provides a portrait of the twenty percent of white evangelicals who have not embraced right-wing populism and have taken steps to fight its spread within their ranks. This chapter, while informative, appears disconnected from the earlier chapters, as the author never explains why this group of evangelicals chooses not to follow most of their colleagues. What makes them different? Were they not subject to the same sources of duress? If so, why did this group embrace Kingdom Ethics/Christian humanism, rather than right-wing populism? And why have they been unsuccessful in convincing other evangelical groups to embrace an activism centered on helping the poor and protecting the environment, rather than a right-wing populism that demonizes the poor and immigrants? Are they perceived as elitist or outsiders within the evangelical community and if so, how did they go from being a majority to a minority within their community? Without a clear understanding of these internal dynamics, the synergy between white evangelicalism and right-wing populism cannot be fully understood nor can it be combatted.
June 24, 2022
Dr. Marcia Pally chronicles Evangelicalism in America going from the founding of America and working its way to the Trump and post-Trump era. All in 134 pages. This book is a miracle as a fair-minded analysis of the often overlap between American right wing populism and Evangelicalism. However, Dr. Pally also examines Evangelicals in the Progressive era and the Evangelicals who, in our current times, are not on the conservative right. The book is filled with footnotes for future research. A highly recommended whirlwind analysis of history, sociology, politics and data.
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October 10, 2024This book is an academic look at why white evangelicals are so drawn to Donald Trump and right-wing populist politics. Pally traces the origins of an anti-government ethos within white evangelicals to colonial times, where many fled Europe in order to start practicing religious freedom in America, giving them the sense that they were entering a Reformed covenant with God against the tyranny of the state, with a Hobbesian view of the fallen nature of humans leading to a distrust of authority. The initial covenant was bidirectional: as Adam had no sin in the garden, the covenant with God must've been made voluntarily.
"Perhaps expectably, given the republican and Reformed Covenantal influence, wariness of government was paired not only with individual freedom but with localism, what Tocqueville called the “principle of association.” Towns, he wrote, continued to “regulate the minor details of social life … and promulgate such orders as concern the health of the community and the peace as well as the morality of the citizens.” Building on the Protestant tenet of individual conscience and the dissenters’ wariness of authority, evangelical ministers preached a radical “self-examination” that relied not even on one's own church."
Pally gives a good definition of what populism is: "a way of understanding and responding to economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses that finds solution in us-them binaries, strong or soft, that draw in mediated ways from the historico-cultural background of the society where the populism is situated. These binaries may propose a “them” of government/elites (often called political populism) or of a suspect group (civilization populism). Binaries may draw from the political right (“we, the real people” against a minority “them”) or from the left (“we, the real workers” against the corrupt rich)." Pally points out that economic stresses from manufacturing jobs leaving, the movement of people from rural areas to cities, and ethnic demographic change brought about by immigration has led to a perfect storm where white evangelicals imagine themselves being besieged by elites and by immigrants. Pally writes that "The only consistent factor among counties where January 6th Capitol rioters lived was not socio-economic class or under- employment but a recent decrease in the non-Hispanic white population. In every state, a one percentage decrease between 2015 and 2019 yielded a 25 percent increase in the likelihood that a rioter came from that county."
Pally also focuses on the dramatic nature of Evangelical theology, especially as espoused in its tendency to believe in snap judgments: "Three strains of evangelicalism developed under this apocalyptic umbrella. Pre-millenarianism held that before (pre) Christ's thousand years of peace and prosperity, the world will decline into a cataclysmic disaster. Attempts to stop this earthly catastrophe and improve living conditions interfered with the mission to save souls in preparation for Christ's return. A second strain, Dispensationalism, held that history is divided into phases or dispensations. The present one would soon end amid an apocalyptic disaster as described in the Book of Revelation. Social relief efforts were diversions from the proper focus on salvation. Third, Holiness doctrine held that ardent believers could reach union with God not only in the messianic future but in this life, provided they strove toward it with sufficient intensity. While Arminianism and Methodism had held to a similar idea, requiring enduring righteousness and continual self-examination, Holiness doctrine proposed the Romantic idea that one could achieve unity with God in a flash, rapturous moment." These ideas were developed against the higher criticism style of exegesis developed in Germany, and today manifests in condemnations of "fake news" and the mainstream media.
Pally's book does suffer from a few weak points in its critique of white evangelicals. There is one section where she thinks it is a paradox that white evangelicals often would benefit on welfare programs even when they vote for candidates that take away welfare. I don't see that as a paradox at all: some people are too proud to take money from the government and they see it as dishonorable. Pally's inability to see this shows that she does not have enough experience understanding the behaviors of white evangelicals. She also tries to make a connection between the Calvinist Puritans and today's white evangelicals, which doesn't make any sense, as Puritans were concentrated in New England and most ended up being Unitarians, which are on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
Finally, Pally discusses white evangelicals that are on the Left. The chapter is a good way to show that there is not one simple definition of evangelicalism. The book, though, does suffer from its bias towards assuming that it is evangelicals on the Left that are the "right" ones when it comes to Christian belief and practice, rather than taking a more apophatic approach and simply saying that humans cannot possibly know.
"Perhaps expectably, given the republican and Reformed Covenantal influence, wariness of government was paired not only with individual freedom but with localism, what Tocqueville called the “principle of association.” Towns, he wrote, continued to “regulate the minor details of social life … and promulgate such orders as concern the health of the community and the peace as well as the morality of the citizens.” Building on the Protestant tenet of individual conscience and the dissenters’ wariness of authority, evangelical ministers preached a radical “self-examination” that relied not even on one's own church."
Pally gives a good definition of what populism is: "a way of understanding and responding to economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses that finds solution in us-them binaries, strong or soft, that draw in mediated ways from the historico-cultural background of the society where the populism is situated. These binaries may propose a “them” of government/elites (often called political populism) or of a suspect group (civilization populism). Binaries may draw from the political right (“we, the real people” against a minority “them”) or from the left (“we, the real workers” against the corrupt rich)." Pally points out that economic stresses from manufacturing jobs leaving, the movement of people from rural areas to cities, and ethnic demographic change brought about by immigration has led to a perfect storm where white evangelicals imagine themselves being besieged by elites and by immigrants. Pally writes that "The only consistent factor among counties where January 6th Capitol rioters lived was not socio-economic class or under- employment but a recent decrease in the non-Hispanic white population. In every state, a one percentage decrease between 2015 and 2019 yielded a 25 percent increase in the likelihood that a rioter came from that county."
Pally also focuses on the dramatic nature of Evangelical theology, especially as espoused in its tendency to believe in snap judgments: "Three strains of evangelicalism developed under this apocalyptic umbrella. Pre-millenarianism held that before (pre) Christ's thousand years of peace and prosperity, the world will decline into a cataclysmic disaster. Attempts to stop this earthly catastrophe and improve living conditions interfered with the mission to save souls in preparation for Christ's return. A second strain, Dispensationalism, held that history is divided into phases or dispensations. The present one would soon end amid an apocalyptic disaster as described in the Book of Revelation. Social relief efforts were diversions from the proper focus on salvation. Third, Holiness doctrine held that ardent believers could reach union with God not only in the messianic future but in this life, provided they strove toward it with sufficient intensity. While Arminianism and Methodism had held to a similar idea, requiring enduring righteousness and continual self-examination, Holiness doctrine proposed the Romantic idea that one could achieve unity with God in a flash, rapturous moment." These ideas were developed against the higher criticism style of exegesis developed in Germany, and today manifests in condemnations of "fake news" and the mainstream media.
Pally's book does suffer from a few weak points in its critique of white evangelicals. There is one section where she thinks it is a paradox that white evangelicals often would benefit on welfare programs even when they vote for candidates that take away welfare. I don't see that as a paradox at all: some people are too proud to take money from the government and they see it as dishonorable. Pally's inability to see this shows that she does not have enough experience understanding the behaviors of white evangelicals. She also tries to make a connection between the Calvinist Puritans and today's white evangelicals, which doesn't make any sense, as Puritans were concentrated in New England and most ended up being Unitarians, which are on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
Finally, Pally discusses white evangelicals that are on the Left. The chapter is a good way to show that there is not one simple definition of evangelicalism. The book, though, does suffer from its bias towards assuming that it is evangelicals on the Left that are the "right" ones when it comes to Christian belief and practice, rather than taking a more apophatic approach and simply saying that humans cannot possibly know.
October 3, 2024
The history in this is s really shoddy, and ignore key programmatically which matter such as continued debates over homosexuality, originate debates over eugenics, and how evangelicals became fundamentalists
November 5, 2023
Excellent
Easy to read primer with lots of footnotes. Learned a lot about the subject and that not all evangelicals are the same.
Easy to read primer with lots of footnotes. Learned a lot about the subject and that not all evangelicals are the same.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews