Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the conservative Christian narrative, outlining the conservative reaction to cultural disestablishment. It examines the characteristics of conservative Christians and their distinctive worldview. Juxtaposed against this worldview is, conservative Christians argue, an opposing, supplanting Zeitgeist or spirit of the times. The book analyses the key tenets of the liberal, modernist state. The first disestablishment occurred at the founding of the Republic and culminated in the First Amendment. The second involved the secularization of American higher education after the Civil War. The third disestablishment was the disestablishment of generic Protestantism from the American way of life beginning in the 1960s. Compared to (what Christians perceive as) the unquestioned acceptance of conservative religious ideas in the era of cultural ascendancy, this looks like and is experienced as a downgrading of religion, a marginalization.