Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Archives
    • By Issue
    • By Article
    • By PDF (2008-14)
    • By PDF (1985-97)
    • All Articles
  • Sections
    • Current Research
    • Findings & Footnotes
    • On/File
  • Google Search
You are here: Home / Archive / Christian right adapts to tea party conservatism

Christian right adapts to tea party conservatism

March 1, 2010 by Richard Cimino

Print-friendly

Social conservatives and the Christian right are taking on the rhetoric of the tea party activists, who form the main opposition to President Obama’s healthcare reform initiative and stimulus spending.

The Los Angeles Times (March 11) reports that social conservatives are exploring the “morality of debt and the risks to religious freedom posed by growing government. Like the tea party activists, they reverently invoke the Founding Fathers, but emphasize the role the founders’ faith played in their writings.” The mainstream of today’s conservative movement as expressed in the tea parties and last month’s Conservative Political Action Conferences stressed economic issues far more than moral-religious ones.

But new groups started in the last year have sought to build new bridges between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. Newt Gingrich co-founded Renewing American Leadership, which states “that the strength of American capitalism and government lies in their Judeo-Christian roots,” writes Kathleen Hennessey. Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, recently founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which aims to boost voter turnout among evangelicals and was already active in New Jersey and Virginia Republican victories in elections for governor last November. Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation said that the greater willingness of the new generation of the Christian right to compromise and work together with differing groups can be seen in their embrace of the tea parties, although both sides have reservations.

Social conservatives say they will support the tea parties as long as activists don’t start advocating for abortion and against traditional marriage. Some tea party leaders, meanwhile, fear that social issues, apart from those concerning the economy, will only distract conservative activists.

Print-friendly

Filed Under: Archive

Also in this issue

  • Findings & Footnotes: March/April 2010
  • Worldwide Orthodoxy facing new internal and external challenges
  • Demand to restore Nepal as a Hindu nation gaining momentum
  • Creationism making inroads in Switzerland
  • Prestigious universities feel the evangelical effect
  • Current Research: March/April 2010
  • Hindu temple rituals online find demand among the faithful
  • Faith-based investing benefiting from economic downturn
  • American religious revival — academically speaking

Search the Site

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Click on the image for downloading

© 2016-2023 Richard Cimino / Religioscope
·News Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress