The Radical Mind - (Studies in Us Religion, Politics, and Law) by Chelsea Ebin (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Through a close analysis of New Right architect Paul Weyrich, who is often seen as secular but was a committed Catholic who worked closely with evangelical Protestants, this book explores the way this Catholic-Protestant political alliance was forged by using a shared identity of victimhood to stitch together disparate religious groups, and then how this new political coalition constructed an imagined past that they projected into the future as the ideal goal. Chelsea Ebin calls this "prefigurative traditionalism" -- a paradoxical prefiguring of a manufactured past. Using this strategy, the new Religious Right obscures the radicality of its politics by framing the movement's aims as reactionary and defensive rather than proactive and offensive. An interdisciplinary work informed by the fields of history, religious studies, public law, and American politics, Prefiguring the Past is an insightful exploration of the origins of the New Christian Right, whose political victories are now radically reshaping the landscape of American society"--

Book Synopsis

The Radical Mind is a groundbreaking analysis of the origins of the Christian Right, whose political victories are radically reshaping the landscape of American society. Scholars and the public alike have traditionally regarded the New Right and the Christian Right as separate movements. The New Right is supposedly a secular right-wing operation with purely political goals, while the Christian Right is an evangelical Protestant movement largely motivated by religious convictions. Insofar as both are conservative efforts, most people view them as reactionary and driven by a culture-war backlash against liberal changes to society.

Chelsea Ebin's The Radical Mind aims to overturn this consensus. Through a close analysis of New Right architects Connaught Marshner and Paul Weyrich (who is often seen as secular but was a committed Catholic), this book explores the way conservative Catholics and Protestants overcame their long-standing antipathy to form a political coalition--what Ebin calls the New Christian Right. Drawing on extensive archival research, Ebin shows how the movement's key architects infused right-wing activism with religion. Rather than working to conserve the past, this book argues that the New Christian Right is fundamentally a forward-looking and proactive movement focused on remaking the political landscape in the United States.

The radical aims of the New Christian Right have been obscured by the way they cultivated a shared identity of victimhood and manipulated the discourse about backlash to create a nostalgic idea of the past that they then leveraged to justify their right-wing policy goals. The Catholic-Protestant alliance constructed an imagined past that they projected into the future as their ideal vision of society. Ebin calls this strategy "prefigurative traditionalism"--a paradoxical prefiguring of a manufactured past. Using this tactic, the New Christian Right coalition disguised the radicality of its politics by framing their aims as reactionary and defensive rather than proactive and offensive.

An interdisciplinary work informed by the fields of history, religious studies, public law, and American politics, The Radical Mind offers a new and convincing explanation for the recent gains of the Christian Right and the morally supercharged political landscape we face today.

Review Quotes

An erudite, historical-biographical analysis of social movements effecting political change. Narrowing the focus specifically on the coalition of the Catholic New Right and the Conservative Protestant movements, Ebin expertly challenges prevailing backlash narratives."--Choice

"A bold and compelling reinterpretation of the rise of the New Right that places religion at the heart of the movement. Ebin demonstrates that figures like Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell were not revivalists of tradition but political and theological innovators whose ideas bound together conservative Catholics and Protestants into a coalition that transformed American politics."--Gene Zubovich, author of Before the Religious Right: Liberal Protestants, Human Rights, and the Polarization of the United States

"This bold reframing of the New Christian Right draws on extensive and perceptive archival research to illustrate the ambitious goal at the heart of the movement: to transform American culture and with it, American politics. Chelsea Ebin centers Catholic activist Paul Weyrich in the development of strategies that brought conservative Protestants and Catholics together under an identity of victimhood. Ebin's carefully constructed argument challenges the dominant framing of the New Christian Right as a 'backlash' to the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and demonstrates the revolutionary--and relevant--goal of cultural dominance at the heart of the movement."--Seth Dowland, author of Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right

"The Radical Mind makes important contributions to the growing body of literature on the rise of the Christian Right in the twentieth century. Ebin interrogates the concept of 'backlash' as an explanatory framework for the rise of the religious right in the 1970s, demonstrating that the Christian Right's framing of its movement as one defending 'traditional' culture from liberal assault was a constructed discourse that created new social and political realities as much as it preserved any imagined past. In telling this story, Ebin provides new insights into familiar figures and introduces previously understudied political actors--especially those pioneering the rise of the New Catholic Right and its coalition building with conservative Protestants--to help us better understand conservative American politics, then and now."--Karen K. Seat, coeditor of A Marginal Majority: Women, Gender, and a Reimagining of Southern Baptists

"The Radical Mind takes us beyond conventional accounts of the Christian Right by showing how conservative Catholic and Protestant political entrepreneurs overcame longstanding antipathies to build both the intellectual and political foundations of the New Right in the 1970s. Deftly blending structural, institutional, and discursive analyses grounded in deep archival excavation, Chelsea Ebin has written one of the best accounts of the Christian Right to date."--Joseph Lowndes, author of From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism

"Chelsea Ebin's new book provides some new archival material that helps us rethink the relationship between the New Right and the New Christian Right. It is particularly useful in helping us to understand the relationship between Catholic and Protestant activists as the movement began to take shape, at a time when the conventional wisdom suggests more hostility than cooperation. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Christian Right or in American right-wing politics more generally."--Clyde Wilcox, coauthor of Federalism: A Very Short Introduction