Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest

225 Pages·2021·10.121 MB·English

by  Crawford Gribben

Survival and Resistance in 
Evangelical America

Survival and Resistance
in Evangelical America
Christian Reconstruction in
the Pacific Northwest
CRAWFORD GRIBBEN
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Gribben, Crawford, author.
Title: Survival and resistance in Evangelical America / by Crawford Gribben.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America. :
Oxford University Press, [2021] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020032350 (print) | LCCN 2020032351 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780199370221 (hb) | ISBN 9780199370245 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—C hurch history— 20th century. |
Evangelicalism— United States— History— 20th century. |
United States— Church history— 21st century. |
Evangelicalism— United States— History— 21st century. |
Migration, Internal—U nited States. |
Evangelism— United States— Forecasting.
Classification: LCC BR526 .G76 2021 (print) |
LCC BR526 (ebook) | DDC 277.308/3 — dc23
LC record available at https://l ccn.loc.gov/ 2020032350
LC ebook record available at https://l ccn.loc.gov/ 2020032351
DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780199370221.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
For Scott Spurlock
The future has never been shaped by majorities but rather by dedi-
cated minorities
— R. J. Rushdoony, The messianic character of American
education, p. 334
Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains
— Matthew 24:16
Contents
Preface ix
Map xiii
Introduction 1
1. Migration 10
2. Eschatology 33
3. Government 59
4. Education 90
5. Media 114
Conclusion 136
Glossary 151
Notes 155
Bibliography 189
Index 205

Preface
When a world disintegrates, nothing more quickly becomes contempt-
ible than its dead values, nothing more dead than its fallen gods, and
nothing more offensively fetid than its old necessities. This will be no
less true of the values of this dying age.1
This book sets out to trace some important trends in evangelical views of
politics, society, and culture at the “end of white Christian America.”2 Some
very important demographic shifts are providing contexts for new iterations
of conservative religion. In one respect, the changing face of evangelicalism
is hardly surprising. “Each time the modern religious right has seemed to be
in decline,” one historian of the movement has noted, “it has reemerged in
a new form.”3 This is certainly true of the controversial religious and polit-
ical movement known as Christian Reconstruction. While this movement
has generated waves of critical commentary, it has generated hardly any se-
rious scholarly attention. Historians of modern American evangelicalism
routinely refer to a number of its key thinkers, but only Molly Worthen, Julie
J. Ingersoll, Michael J. McVicar, Brian Auten, Frances Fitzgerald, and Gillis
J. Harp have offered substantial accounts of its principal themes or thought
leaders, or of the influence they have commanded.4 This lack of discussion
may be related to the fact that almost everyone who writes about the move-
ment argues that it declined, and perhaps died, in the 1990s.5 This book makes
a different case. In a social history of theological ideas, which draws upon
ethnographic and literary critical approaches, this book sets out to explain
why, how, and to what effect increasing numbers of born- again Protestants
are moving away from political activity to push for preparedness for survival
or cultural reform, while describing elements of the “reconstructed” com-
munities and culture that, in advancing this agenda, they have created in the
Pacific Northwest. In the context of this broader migration of religious and
political conservatives into states such as Idaho, Christian Reconstruction
has been revived, modified, and tempered, and, as its advocates develop