Piety and Public Funding

Piety and Public Funding PDF Author: Axel R. Schafer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812244113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
How is it that some conservative groups are viscerally antigovernment even while enjoying the benefits of government funding? In Piety and Public Funding historian Axel R. Schäfer offers a compelling answer to this question by chronicling how, in the first half century since World War II, conservative evangelical groups became increasingly adept at accommodating their hostility to the state with federal support. Though holding to the ideals of church-state separation, evangelicals gradually took advantage of expanded public funding opportunities for religious foreign aid, health care, education, and social welfare. This was especially the case during the Cold War, when groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals were at the forefront of battling communism at home and abroad. It was evident, too, in the Sunbelt, where the military-industrial complex grew exponentially after World War II and where the postwar right would achieve its earliest success. Contrary to evangelicals' own claims, liberal public policies were a boon for, not a threat to, their own institutions and values. The welfare state, forged during the New Deal and renewed by the Great Society, hastened—not hindered—the ascendancy of a conservative political movement that would, in turn, use its resurgence as leverage against the very system that helped create it. By showing that the liberal state's dependence on private and nonprofit social services made it vulnerable to assaults from the right, Piety and Public Funding brings a much needed historical perspective to a hotly debated contemporary issue: the efforts of both Republican and Democratic administrations to channel federal money to "faith-based" organizations. It suggests a major reevaluation of the religious right, which grew to dominate evangelicalism by exploiting institutional ties to the state while simultaneously brandishing a message of free enterprise and moral awakening.

Piety and Public Funding

Piety and Public Funding PDF Author: Axel R. Schafer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812244113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
How is it that some conservative groups are viscerally antigovernment even while enjoying the benefits of government funding? In Piety and Public Funding historian Axel R. Schäfer offers a compelling answer to this question by chronicling how, in the first half century since World War II, conservative evangelical groups became increasingly adept at accommodating their hostility to the state with federal support. Though holding to the ideals of church-state separation, evangelicals gradually took advantage of expanded public funding opportunities for religious foreign aid, health care, education, and social welfare. This was especially the case during the Cold War, when groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals were at the forefront of battling communism at home and abroad. It was evident, too, in the Sunbelt, where the military-industrial complex grew exponentially after World War II and where the postwar right would achieve its earliest success. Contrary to evangelicals' own claims, liberal public policies were a boon for, not a threat to, their own institutions and values. The welfare state, forged during the New Deal and renewed by the Great Society, hastened—not hindered—the ascendancy of a conservative political movement that would, in turn, use its resurgence as leverage against the very system that helped create it. By showing that the liberal state's dependence on private and nonprofit social services made it vulnerable to assaults from the right, Piety and Public Funding brings a much needed historical perspective to a hotly debated contemporary issue: the efforts of both Republican and Democratic administrations to channel federal money to "faith-based" organizations. It suggests a major reevaluation of the religious right, which grew to dominate evangelicalism by exploiting institutional ties to the state while simultaneously brandishing a message of free enterprise and moral awakening.

Piety and Public Funding

Piety and Public Funding PDF Author: Axel R. Schäfer
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812206592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
How is it that some conservative groups are viscerally antigovernment even while enjoying the benefits of government funding? In Piety and Public Funding historian Axel R. Schäfer offers a compelling answer to this question by chronicling how, in the first half century since World War II, conservative evangelical groups became increasingly adept at accommodating their hostility to the state with federal support. Though holding to the ideals of church-state separation, evangelicals gradually took advantage of expanded public funding opportunities for religious foreign aid, health care, education, and social welfare. This was especially the case during the Cold War, when groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals were at the forefront of battling communism at home and abroad. It was evident, too, in the Sunbelt, where the military-industrial complex grew exponentially after World War II and where the postwar right would achieve its earliest success. Contrary to evangelicals' own claims, liberal public policies were a boon for, not a threat to, their own institutions and values. The welfare state, forged during the New Deal and renewed by the Great Society, hastened—not hindered—the ascendancy of a conservative political movement that would, in turn, use its resurgence as leverage against the very system that helped create it. By showing that the liberal state's dependence on private and nonprofit social services made it vulnerable to assaults from the right, Piety and Public Funding brings a much needed historical perspective to a hotly debated contemporary issue: the efforts of both Republican and Democratic administrations to channel federal money to "faith-based" organizations. It suggests a major reevaluation of the religious right, which grew to dominate evangelicalism by exploiting institutional ties to the state while simultaneously brandishing a message of free enterprise and moral awakening.

Piety & Politics

Piety & Politics PDF Author: Reverend Barry W. Lynn
Publisher: Forum Books
ISBN: 0307381633
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The Reverend Barry Lynn explains why the Religious Right has it all wrong. In the wake of the 2004 presidential election, the Religious Right insisted that George Bush had been handed a mandate for an ideology-based social agenda, including the passage of a “marriage amendment” to ban same-sex unions, diversion of tax money to religious groups through “faith-based initiatives,” the teaching of creationism in public schools, and restrictions on abortion. Led by an aggressive band of television preachers and extremist radio personalities, the Religious Right set its sights on demolishing the wall of separation between church and state. The Reverend Barry Lynn is a devout Christian, but this propaganda effort disturbs him deeply. He argues that politicians need to stop looking to the Bible to justify their actions and should consult another source instead: the U.S. Constitution. When the Founding Fathers of our great nation created the Constitution, they had seen firsthand the dangers of an injudicious mix of religion and government. They knew what it was like to live under the yoke of state-imposed faith. They drew up a model for the new nation that would allow absolute freedom of religion. They knew that religion, united with the raw power of government, spawns tyranny. Yet the Religious Right now seems distrustful of those principles inherent in the Constitution, viewing the separation of church and state only as a dangerous anti-Christian principle imposed upon our nation. In reality, the separation between church and state has been an important ally to religion: with the state out of the picture, hundreds of religions have grown and prospered. Religion doesn’t need the government’s assistance, any more than it is practical or appropriate for religious doctrine to be fostered in the government or taught in public schools. As an explicitly religious figure speaking out against the Religious Right, Lynn has incurred the wrath of such personalities as Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who once said Lynn was “lower than a child molester.” Lynn has continuously taken on these radicals of the Religious Right calmly and rationally, using their own statements and religious fervor to prove that when they attack the constitutionally mandated separation, they’re actually attacking freedom of religion. In Piety & Politics, the Reverend Barry Lynn continues the fight—educating Americans about what is at stake, explaining why it is crucial that we maintain the separation of church and state, and galvanizing us to defend the honor of our religious freedom.

Brandishing the First Amendment

Brandishing the First Amendment PDF Author: Tamara Piety
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472117920
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Tamara R. Piety argues that increasingly expansive First Amendment protections for commercial speech imperil public health, safety, and welfare; the reliability of commercial and consumer information; the stability of financial markets; and the global environment. Using evidence from public relations and marketing, behavioral economics, psychology, and cognitive studies, she shows how overly permissive extensions of protections to commercial expression limit governmental power to address a broad range of public policy issues.

Patriotism and Piety

Patriotism and Piety PDF Author: Jonathan J. Den Hartog
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 081393642X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
In Patriotism and Piety, Jonathan Den Hartog argues that the question of how religion would function in American society was decided in the decades after the Constitution and First Amendment established a legal framework. Den Hartog shows that among the wide array of politicians and public figures struggling to define religion’s place in the new nation, Federalists stood out—evolving religious attitudes were central to Federalism, and the encounter with Federalism strongly shaped American Christianity. Den Hartog describes the Federalist appropriations of religion as passing through three stages: a "republican" phase of easy cooperation inherited from the experience of the American Revolution; a "combative" phase, forged during the political battles of the 1790s–1800s, when the destiny of the republic was hotly contested; and a "voluntarist" phase that grew in importance after 1800. Faith became more individualistic and issue-oriented as a result of the actions of religious Federalists. Religious impulses fueled party activism and informed governance, but the redirection of religious energies into voluntary societies sapped party momentum, and religious differences led to intraparty splits. These developments altered not only the Federalist Party but also the practice and perception of religion in America, as Federalist insights helped to create voluntary, national organizations in which Americans could practice their faith in interdenominational settings. Patriotism and Pietyfocuses on the experiences and challenges confronted by a number of Federalists, from well-known leaders such as John Adams, John Jay, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Timothy Dwight to lesser-known but still important figures such as Caleb Strong, Elias Boudinot, and William Jay.

American Evangelicals and the 1960s

American Evangelicals and the 1960s PDF Author: Axel R. Schäfer
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299293637
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In the late 1970s, the New Christian Right emerged as a formidable political force, boldly announcing itself as a unified movement representing the views of a "moral majority." But that movement did not spring fully formed from its predecessors. American Evangelicals and the 1960s refutes the thesis that evangelical politics were a purely inflammatory backlash against the cultural and political upheaval of the decade. Bringing together fresh research and innovative interpretations, this book demonstrates that evangelicals actually participated in broader American developments during "the long 1960s," that the evangelical constituency was more diverse than often noted, and that the notion of right-wing evangelical politics as a backlash was a later creation serving the interests of both Republican-conservative alliances and their critics. Evangelicalism's involvement with—rather than its reaction against—the main social movements, public policy initiatives, and cultural transformations of the 1960s proved significant in its 1970s political ascendance. Twelve essays that range thematically from the oil industry to prison ministry and from American counterculture to the Second Vatican Council depict modern evangelicalism both as a religious movement with its own internal dynamics and as one fully integrated into general American history.

Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640

Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640 PDF Author: Tessa Watt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521458276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This book looks at popular belief through a detailed study of the cheapest printed wares in London in the century after the Reformation.

The Matter of Piety

The Matter of Piety PDF Author: Ruben Suykerbuyk
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004433104
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
The Matter of Piety provides the first in-depth study of Zoutleeuw’s exceptionally well-preserved pilgrimage church in a comparative perspective, and revaluates religious art and material culture in Netherlandish piety from the late Middle Ages through the crisis of iconoclasm and the Reformation to Catholic restoration. Analyzing the changing functions, outlooks, and meanings of devotional objects – monumental sacrament houses, cult statues and altarpieces, and small votive offerings or relics – Ruben Suykerbuyk revises dominant narratives about Catholic culture and patronage in the Low Countries. Rather than being a paralyzing force, the Reformation incited engaged counterinitiatives, and the vitality of late medieval devotion served as the fertile ground from which the Counter-Reformation organically grew under Protestant impulses.

Follow the New Way

Follow the New Way PDF Author: Melissa May Borja
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067429002X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
An incisive look at Hmong religion in the United States, where resettled refugees found creative ways to maintain their traditions, even as Christian organizations deputized by the government were granted an outsized influence on the refugees’ new lives. Every year, members of the Hmong Christian Church of God in Minneapolis gather for a cherished Thanksgiving celebration. But this Thanksgiving takes place in the spring, in remembrance of the turbulent days in May 1975 when thousands of Laotians were evacuated for resettlement in the United States. For many Hmong, passage to America was also a spiritual crossing. As they found novel approaches to living, they also embraced Christianity—called kev cai tshiab, “the new way”—as a means of navigating their complex spiritual landscapes. Melissa May Borja explores how this religious change happened and what it has meant for Hmong culture. American resettlement policies unintentionally deprived Hmong of the resources necessary for their time-honored rituals, in part because these practices, blending animism, ancestor worship, and shamanism, challenged many Christian-centric definitions of religion. At the same time, because the government delegated much of the resettlement work to Christian organizations, refugees developed close and dependent relationships with Christian groups. Ultimately the Hmong embraced Christianity on their own terms, adjusting to American spiritual life while finding opportunities to preserve their customs. Follow the New Way illustrates America’s wavering commitments to pluralism and secularism, offering a much-needed investigation into the public work done by religious institutions with the blessing of the state. But in the creation of a Christian-inflected Hmong American animism we see the resilience of tradition—how it deepens under transformative conditions.

Money, Greed, and God

Money, Greed, and God PDF Author: Jay W. Richards
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061874566
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
In Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute Jay W. Richards and bestselling author of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It's Too Late and Infiltrated: How to Stop the Insiders and Activists Who Are Exploiting the Financial Crisis to Control Our Lives and Our Fortunes, defends capitalism within the context of the Christian faith, revealing how entrepreneurial enterprise, based on hard work, honesty, and trust, actually fosters creativity and growth. In doing so, Money, Greed, and God exposes eight myths about capitalism, and demonstrates that a good Christian can be a good capitalist.