The Global Roots of the Christian Right

The Religious Right that rose and flourished during the 1970s and 1980s has been pilloried for some time and from all sides. Secularists attack it for trying to erect a theocracy in the US of A, forgetting that Baptists like Jerry Falwell were heirs of Roger Williams. Some Evangelicals criticize its blinkered focus on moral and sexual issues -- abortion, school prayer, gay rights -- and its indifference to systemic injustice. Others equate the Religious Right with white supremacy, charging that it was a rearguard effort by white Christians to shore up their eroding status.