The Rise of Baptist Republicanism

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book By championing the ideals of independence, evangelism, and conservism, the Southern Baptist Covention (SBC) has grown into the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The Convention's mass democratic form of church government, its influential annual meetings, and its sheer size have made it a barometer for Southern political and cultural shift. Its most recent shift has been starboard-toward fundamentalism and Republicanism. While the Convention once ofered a happy home to Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and church-state separationists, in the past two decades the SBC has become an uncomfortable institution for Democrats, progressive theologians, and other moderate voices. Current SBC member-heroes include Senators Trent Lott and Jesse Helms. Despite this seeming marginalization, Southern Baptist politicians have grown from political obscurity to occupying the four highest positions in the constitutional order of succesion to the presidency. President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senate President pro-tempore Strom Thurmond, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich are all Southern Baptists. In its emerging Republicanism, the SBC has taken on characteristics of its more active fellow travelers in the Christian Right, forging alliances with former enemies (African Americans amd Roman Catholics), playing presidential politics, establishing a Washington lobbying presence, working the political grassroots, and declaring war on Walt Disney. Each of these missions has been accomplished with calculating political precision. The Rise of Baptist Republicanism traces the Republicanization of the SBC's Republicanism in the context of the rise of the Fundamentalist Right and the emergence of a Republican majority in the South. Describing the SBC's political roots, Oran P. Smith contrasts Baptist Republicans with the rest of the Christian Right while revealing the theological, cultural, and historical factors which have made Southern Baptists receptive to Republican/Fundamentalist Right influences. The book is a must read for anyone wishing to understand the intersection of religion and politics in America today.

History

Smith, Oran P.

World

NYU Press

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book  By championing the ideals of independence, evangelism, and conservism, the Southern Baptist Covention (SBC) has grown into the largest Protestant denomination in the country. The Convention's mass democratic form of church government, its influential annual meetings, and its sheer size have made it a barometer for Southern political and cultural shift. Its most recent shift has been starboard-toward fundamentalism and Republicanism. While the Convention once ofered a happy home to Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and church-state separationists, in the past two decades the SBC has become an uncomfortable institution for Democrats, progressive theologians, and other moderate voices. Current SBC member-heroes include Senators Trent Lott and Jesse Helms. Despite this seeming marginalization, Southern Baptist politicians have grown from political obscurity to occupying the four highest positions in the constitutional order of succesion to the presidency. President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senate President pro-tempore Strom Thurmond, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich are all Southern Baptists. In its emerging Republicanism, the SBC has taken on characteristics of its more active fellow travelers in the Christian Right, forging alliances with former enemies (African Americans amd Roman Catholics), playing presidential politics, establishing a Washington lobbying presence, working the political grassroots, and declaring war on Walt Disney. Each of these missions has been accomplished with calculating political precision. The Rise of Baptist Republicanism traces the Republicanization of the SBC's Republicanism in the context of the rise of the Fundamentalist Right and the emergence of a Republican majority in the South. Describing the SBC's political roots, Oran P. Smith contrasts Baptist Republicans with the rest of the Christian Right while revealing the theological, cultural, and historical factors which have made Southern Baptists receptive to Republican/Fundamentalist Right influences. The book is a must read for anyone wishing to understand the intersection of religion and politics in America today.

The Rise of Baptist Republicanism (Choice Outstanding Academic Book)

Edited by Richard M. Quinn and Oran P. Smith and published by Charles S. Hamel, Southern Partisan is a magazine dedicated to defining and defending traditional Southern values. This volume is a collector’s edition that includes much of the best work offered during the years of the existence of the magazine. Published quarterly, each issue of Southern Partisan is an eclectic mixture of politics, history, literature, religion and culture from a Southern perspective. With subscribers in all the American states and most European countries, the magazine is a major intellectual outlet for Southern conservatism. Regular features include a “Partisan Conversation,” or interview, with a notable person; “Obiter Dicta,” a collection of stinging editorial comments; “Civil War Trivia” by Webb Garrison; “Anguished English” by Richard Lederer; “Southern Sampler” by Bill Freehoff; and its most famous staple, the “Scalawag Award,” which is given each issue to a Southerner who the editors believe has conspicuously betrayed the heritage or the values of the South. President Bill Clinton, Tom Wicker, Bill Moyers, Vice President Al Gore, Jr., and David Gergen are examples of notable recipients of the infamous Scalawag Award. Much of the writing in the magazine draws inspiration from the twelve Southern “fugitive agrarians” who produced the famous defense of the South, I’ll Take My Stand, in 1930. Typical articles have included “The Dark Side of Abraham Lincoln,” “Twenty Years After Richard Weaver: The Battle Continues,” “The Second Burning of Atlanta,” “Black Fighters for the South,” “Did the Founding Fathers Talk Like Yankees?,” “James Thornwell and Southern Religion,” “The Last Confederate Widow,” “Is the South A Nation?,” and “The Yankeefication of Conservative Thought.” The Southern Partisan Quarterly Review was founded in 1979. The magazine was purchased in 1981 by the Foundation for American Education and publication was resumed under the shorter title, Southern Partisan, in the summer of that year. Southern Partisan was purchased by Southern Partisan Corporation in 1984. Subject divisions: Antebellum Matters: The World Our Forefathers Made; Regional Color: What is it that Makes the South the South?; The War and Related Struggles: The Truth About the “Late Unpleasantness”; The Battle Continues: Is It True What They Say About Dixie?; Memorable Conversations: Great Southerners Speak Out. Authors: Richard M. Quinn, Charles S. Hamel, Eugene D. Genovese, M.E. Bradford, Russell Kirk, Paul Gottfried, Otto J. Scott, Charles Goolsby, James Everett Kibler, Mark Royden Winchell, Holmes Alexander, Robert Whitaker, Richard M. Weaver, James J. Thompson, Jr., Sheldon Vanauken, Rod Gragg, Peggy Robbins, Ludwell H. Johnson III, Thomas H. Landess, J.O. Tate, Robert McHugh, Edward Shapiro, Warren Leamon, Forrest McDonald, Donald Davidson, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Cleanth Brooks, Daisy Cave, James Dickey, J. Evetts Haley, Jesse Helms, Brigid Kerrigan, James Meredith.

So Good a Cause: A Decade of the Southern Partisan

Americas

Foundation for Amer Education

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Books by Smith, Oran P.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Smith, Oran P.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Rise of Baptist Republicanism

The Rise of Baptist Republicanism (Choice Outstanding Academic Book)

So Good a Cause: A Decade of the Southern Partisan