ABSTRACT
This chapter examines popular and scholarly understanding of the movement’s rise and evolution, with special attention to paradigms impeding understanding of the Christian Right. The Christian Right has forsaken revolution for evolution, abandoning its quixotic quest to “put God back in government” for a calculated campaign to infiltrate and influence carefully selected repositories of political power. The rise of the Christian Right is a familiar story that has been told by historians, sociologists, theologians, and political scientists, among others. As the label implies, the dominant characteristic of the Christian Right during the expansionist period was steady growth. The critical transition period is often overlooked by scholars’ intent on explaining the rise of the Christian Right in the early 1980s or assessing its activities in the wake of Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s presidential bid. The distinguishing feature of the institutionalization period is the existence of several stable and well-positioned organizations.
