Randall Balmer

A historian and ordained Episcopal priest offers everything you need to know for shaping and defending your own beliefs on the role of religion in American life Filled with stories from America's struggle for religious freedom most readers have never heard before and perfect for fans of Jesus and John Wayne and On Tyranny The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution codified the principle that government should play no role in favoring or supporting any religion, while allowing free exercise of all religions (including unbelief). More than 200 years later, the results from this experiment are overwhelming: The separation of church and state has shielded the government from religious factionalism, and the United States boasts a diverse religious culture unmatched in the world. But changes have been taking place at an accelerating pace in recent years. The current Supreme Court has shifted away from excluding the influence and practice of religion at public institutions and in our laws and policies, and moved dramatically toward protecting the inclusion and promotion of religion in publicly funded undertakings. Moreover, adherents to a Christian Nationalism ideology have grown more vocal and emboldened, and are increasingly moving into positions of power. Randall Balmer, one of the premier historians of religion in America, reviews both the history of the separation of church and state and various attempts to undermine that wall. Despite the fact that the 1st Amendment and the separation of church and state has served the nation remarkably well, he argues, its future is by no means assured.

The myth of a Christian America fuels a powerful political force sure of its moral superiority and intent on implementing a Christian nationalist agenda. Richard T. Hughes and Christina Littlefield draw on discussions of civil religion and forms of nationalism to explore the complex legal and cultural arguments for a Christian America. The authors also provide an in-depth examination of the Bible’s words on the “chosen nation” and “kingdom of God” that Christian nationalists quote to support the idea of the US as a Christian nation. A timely new edition of the acclaimed work, Christian America and the Kingdom of God spotlights how the centuries-long pursuit of a Christian America has bred an aggressive white Christian nationalism that twists faith, unleashes unchristian behavior, and threatens the nation.

The myth of a Christian America fuels a powerful political force sure of its moral superiority and intent on implementing a Christian nationalist agenda. Richard T. Hughes and Christina Littlefield draw on discussions of civil religion and forms of nationalism to explore the complex legal and cultural arguments for a Christian America. The authors also provide an in-depth examination of the Bible’s words on the “chosen nation” and “kingdom of God” that Christian nationalists quote to support the idea of the US as a Christian nation. A timely new edition of the acclaimed work, Christian America and the Kingdom of God spotlights how the centuries-long pursuit of a Christian America has bred an aggressive white Christian nationalism that twists faith, unleashes unchristian behavior, and threatens the nation.

What really gave rise to the Religious Right? There is a commonly accepted story about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: with righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The problem is this story simply isn't true. Bad Faith recounts how it was in fact the elimination of tax-exempt status for racially discriminatory Christian institutions, like Bob Jones University, that galvanized evangelicalism into a political force. Only later, when something more palatable was needed to cover for what was becoming an increasingly unpopular position following the civil rights era, was the moral crusade against abortion made the leading issue. Through exhaustive research and trenchant historical analysis, Randall Balmer exposes the ingrained priorities of the Religious Right movement and uncovers the roots of coded evangelical watchwords like "religious freedom" and "family values"--helping to explain, in part, what this movement has become.

This illuminating biography of our thirty-ninth president by an acclaimed historian of American religion presents Jimmy Carter as the last great standard-bearer of progressive evangelical politics. Evangelical Christianity and conservative politics are commonly viewed today as inseparable. But when Carter, a Democrat and unabashed born-again Christian, won the presidency in 1976, he owed his victory in part to American evangelicals. Yet four years later, those very same voters abandoned Carter for Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party, signaling the eclipse of Christian progressivism by the Religious Right. Balmer briskly narrates Carter's religious and political development, his stunning rise from peanut farmer to Georgia governor to president of the United States, his accomplishments and missteps, and his swift fall from political grace. With a keen eye for the dynamic politics of the 1970s and '80s and the inner workings of right-wing religious organizing, Balmer provides a compelling account of an often-misunderstood moment in American political history, full of insight into the character and motivations of the nation's longest-lived president. Now in paperback for the first time, this edition includes a new afterword on the forces that led to Carter's 1980 defeat and the ways his policy priorities and values extended to his long career as a humanitarian and activist after leaving the White House.

Randall Balmer was a late convert to sports talk radio, but he quickly became addicted, just like millions of other devoted American sports fans. As a historian of religion, the more he listened, Balmer couldn't help but wonder how the fervor he heard related to religious practice. Houses of worship once railed against Sabbath-busting sports events, but today most willingly accommodate Super Bowl Sunday. On the other hand, basketball's inventor, James Naismith, was an ardent follower of Muscular Christianity and believed the game would help develop religious character. But today those religious roots are largely forgotten.Here one of our most insightful writers on American religion trains his focus on that other great passion—team sports—to reveal their surprising connections. From baseball to basketball and football to ice hockey, Balmer explores the origins and histories of big-time sports from the late nineteenth century to the present, with entertaining anecdotes and fresh insights into their ties to religious life. Referring to Notre Dame football, The Catholic Sun called its fandom "a kind of sacramental." Legions of sports fans reading Passion Plays will recognize exactly what that means.

A surprising and disturbing origin story There is a commonly accepted story about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: with righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The problem is this story simply isn't true. Largely ambivalent about abortion until the late 1970s, evangelical leaders were first mobilized not by Roe v. Wade but by Green v. Connally, a lesser-known court decision in 1971 that threatened the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory institutions--of which there were several in the world of Christian education at the time. When the most notorious of these schools, Bob Jones University, had its tax-exempt status revoked in 1976, evangelicalism was galvanized as a political force and brought into the fold of the Republican Party. Only later, when a more palatable issue was needed to cover for what was becoming an increasingly unpopular position following the civil rights era, was the moral crusade against abortion made the central issue of the movement now known as the Religious Right. In this greatly expanded argument from his 2014 Politico article "The Real Origins of the Religious Right," Randall Balmer guides the reader along the convoluted historical trajectory that began with American evangelicalism as a progressive force opposed to slavery, then later an isolated apolitical movement in the mid-twentieth century, all the way through the 2016 election in which 81 percent of white evangelicals coalesced around Donald Trump for president. The pivotal point, Balmer shows, was the period in the late 1970s when American evangelicals turned against Jimmy Carter--despite his being one of their own, a professed "born-again" Christian--in favor of the Republican Party, which found it could win their loyalty through the espousal of a single issue. With the implications of this alliance still unfolding, Balmer's account uncovers the roots of evangelical watchwords like "religious freedom" and "family values" while getting to the truth of how this movement began--explaining, in part, what it has become.

Solemn Reverence vividly portrays both the history of the separation of church and state and the various attempts to undermine that wall of separation. Despite the fact that the First Amendment and the separation of church and state has served the nation remarkably well, Balmer shows that previous episodes and ongoing efforts indicate its future is by no means assured. An unprecedented experiment in church-state relations, the First Amendment to the US Constitution codified the principle that the government should play no role in favoring or supporting any religion, while allowing free exercise of all religions (including unbelief). More than two centuries later, the results from this experiment are overwhelming: The separation of church and state has shielded the government from religious factionalism, and the United States boasts a diverse and salubrious religious culture unmatched anywhere in the world. At various times throughout American history, however, and continuing to the present, special interests have sought to whittle away at the wall of separation between church and state -- by seeking to declare that the United States is a "Christian nation," by installing religious symbols in public spaces, by allowing tax-exempt entities to engage in partisan politics, or by diverting taxpayer funds for the support of religious schools.

With impressively clear prose and a superb command of history, best-selling author Randall Balmer offers a spirited history of evangelical Christianity in the United States. Effortlessly situating developments in evangelicalism in their wider historical context, he demonstrates the ways American social and cultural settings influenced the course of the evangelical tradition. By revealing the four key moments in the movement's history, he ably demonstrates how American Evangelicalism is truly American. Concluding with a manifesto directing where evangelicalism must go from here forth, Balmer's The Making of Evangelicalism will interest every reader - evangelical, mainline, secular - who wants to better understand evangelicals today.

When Art Disrupts Religion opens at London's Tate Modern Museum, with a young Evangelical man contemplating a painting by Mark Rothko, an aesthetic experience that proves disruptive to his religious life. Without those moments with Rothko, he says, "there never would have been an undoing of my conservative Evangelical worldview." The memoirs, interviews, and ethnographic field notes gathered by Philip Francis for this book lay bare the power of the arts to unsettle and overturn deeply ingrained religious beliefs and practices. Francis explores the aesthetic disturbances of more than 80 Evangelical respondants. From the paintings of Rothko to the films of Ingmar Bergman, from The Brothers Karamozov to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Francis finds that the arts function as sites of "defamiliarization," "comfort in uncertainty," "a stand-in for faith" and a "surrogate transcendence." Bridging the gap between aesthetic theory and lived religion, this book sheds light on the complex interrelationship of religion and art in the modern West, and the role of the arts in education and social life.

Evangelicalism has left its indelible mark on American history, politics, and culture. It is also true that currents of American populism and politics have shaped the nature and character of evangelicalism. This story of evangelicalism in America is thus riddled with paradox. Despite the fact that evangelicals, perhaps more than any other religious group, have benefited from the First Amendment and the separation of church and state, several prominent evangelical leaders over the past half century have tried to abrogate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. And despite evangelicalism's legacy of concern for the poor, for women, and for minorities, some contemporary evangelicals have repudiated their own heritage of compassion and sacrifice stemming from Jesus' command to love the least of these.In Evangelicalism in America Randall Balmer chronicles the history of evangelicalism - its origins and development as well as its diversity and contradictions. Within this lineage Balmer explores the social varieties and political implications of evangelicalism's inception as well as its present and paradoxical relationship with American culture and politics. Balmer debunks some of the cherished myths surrounding this distinctly American movement while also prophetically speaking about its future contributions to American life.

Randall Balmer's Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory is an insightful and engaging journey into the world of conservative Christians in America. Originally published twenty-five years ago and the basis for an award-winning PBS documentary, this timely new edition arrives just as recent elections have left an ever-growing number of secular Americans wondering exactly how the other half thinks. From Oregon to Florida, and from Texas to North Dakota, Balmer offers an immensely readable tour of the highways and byways of American evangelicalism. We visit a revival meeting in Florida, an Indian reservation in the Dakotas, a trade show for Christian booksellers, and a fundamentalist Bible camp in the Adirondacks. For this 25th-Anniversary edition, Balmer adds a new chapter and an Afterword. Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory offers readers a genuine insight into the appeal that the evangelicals movement holds for thousands of Americans.