This is a great point. It's funny--even as I said "Billy Graham" on the video the other day I was sort of wincing, because I don't know all that much about him specifically and wished I'd thought of a better example off the top of my head. My point was just to say that there's a major difference between a religious political power base that's centered on actual faith leaders and one that's centered on business people who consider themselves believers but are mostly just political hangers-on. Anyway, how do I find your book!!
Ah so nice to hear from you Andrew! Thanks for your response. I am a regular listener/reader and was jumping up and down wanting to join the conversation (The Bulwark has been my go-to place for sanity and perspective for ages and since January as I've been working on this follow-up book it's been an absolute lifeline). Billy Graham is such a slippery figure...one of the fascinating things about him (besides how much he railed against the liberal/communist devil in the 1950s) is that he actually started out as a pretty fringe figure, but through some amazing comms by the New Evangelicals --and their unbelievably aggressive campaign to paint Mainline Protestants as, you guessed it, the liberal devil (although "liberal" meant something different at the time, it was more aligned with the social gospel which the Evangelicals used to "prove" that Mainline churches were full of Communists)-- they, the Evangelicals, were able to self-mainstream, bringing their narrative about the liberal (Communist) devil with them! The history is totally bonkers and it draws in all kinds of weird overlaps between secular and religious elements, including huge injections of (under the radar) cash from these oil tycoons and other business-types (who were also funding organizations like the John Birch Society plus more respectable publications like the National Review and a host of other rightwing media, helping to further crystalize the figure of the liberal/leftist devil through incessant multi-channel repetition). At the time Billy Graham was like, er, thanks for all your money, Texas Oil Tycoons, but let's keep this between us because I don't want people to think I/the Evangelical movement as a whole is a corporate product, which it kind of was. Really wild stuff. But I'd be happy to send you a PDF of the book, just send something to my university email (wphilli2 [at] uoregon [dot] edu) and I'll zip it over! Thanks again for your comment!! And for all the work you and the team is doing.
This is a great point. It's funny--even as I said "Billy Graham" on the video the other day I was sort of wincing, because I don't know all that much about him specifically and wished I'd thought of a better example off the top of my head. My point was just to say that there's a major difference between a religious political power base that's centered on actual faith leaders and one that's centered on business people who consider themselves believers but are mostly just political hangers-on. Anyway, how do I find your book!!
Ah so nice to hear from you Andrew! Thanks for your response. I am a regular listener/reader and was jumping up and down wanting to join the conversation (The Bulwark has been my go-to place for sanity and perspective for ages and since January as I've been working on this follow-up book it's been an absolute lifeline). Billy Graham is such a slippery figure...one of the fascinating things about him (besides how much he railed against the liberal/communist devil in the 1950s) is that he actually started out as a pretty fringe figure, but through some amazing comms by the New Evangelicals --and their unbelievably aggressive campaign to paint Mainline Protestants as, you guessed it, the liberal devil (although "liberal" meant something different at the time, it was more aligned with the social gospel which the Evangelicals used to "prove" that Mainline churches were full of Communists)-- they, the Evangelicals, were able to self-mainstream, bringing their narrative about the liberal (Communist) devil with them! The history is totally bonkers and it draws in all kinds of weird overlaps between secular and religious elements, including huge injections of (under the radar) cash from these oil tycoons and other business-types (who were also funding organizations like the John Birch Society plus more respectable publications like the National Review and a host of other rightwing media, helping to further crystalize the figure of the liberal/leftist devil through incessant multi-channel repetition). At the time Billy Graham was like, er, thanks for all your money, Texas Oil Tycoons, but let's keep this between us because I don't want people to think I/the Evangelical movement as a whole is a corporate product, which it kind of was. Really wild stuff. But I'd be happy to send you a PDF of the book, just send something to my university email (wphilli2 [at] uoregon [dot] edu) and I'll zip it over! Thanks again for your comment!! And for all the work you and the team is doing.