The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics: How Abortion Transformed the Culture Wars

by Andrew R. Lewis

The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics documents a recent, fundamental change in American politics with the waning of Christian America. Rather than conservatives emphasizing morality and liberals emphasizing rights, both sides now wield rights arguments as potent weapons to win political and legal battles and build grassroots support. Lewis documents this change on the right, focusing primarily on evangelical politics. Using extensive historical and survey data that compares evangelical advocacy and evangelical public opinion, Lewis explains how the prototypical culture war issue - abortion - motivated the conservative rights turn over the past half century, serving as a springboard for rights learning and increased conservative advocacy in other arenas. Challenging the way we think about the culture wars, Lewis documents how rights claims are used to thwart liberal rights claims, as well as to provide protection for evangelicals, whose cultural positions are increasingly in the minority; they have also allowed evangelical elites to justify controversial advocacy positions to their base and to engage more easily in broad rights claiming in new or expanded political arenas, from health care to capital punishment.

Genres: Religion

288 pages, Hardcover

Published October 19, 2017

Reviews

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the awkward title this book turned out fine. It is a study in the changing attitudes among Catholic and Protestant conservative Christians from about the 60s to the present and the centrality of the abortion issue for these conservatives. I was aware that there had been major changes over the decades, but the devil is in the details, which Lewis lays out for us in clear fashion.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Fascinating read about the uses and abuses of language and law in American politics and culture.”

[jem]

hello prof lewis if you’re seeing this 🤭