God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right

Daniel Williams has written the new definitive account of the Christian Right. In his sweeping synthesis, he offers a fresh revisiting of this movement's oft-told history from the perspective of contemporary scholarship and current events. God's Own Party is a must read for anyone who wants to learn how evangelical conservatism evolved through the twentieth century in a way that allowed it to enter the twenty-first century ensconced in a position of influence. Such influence was by no means guaranteed when evangelicals first engaged modern politics, a process Williams identifies with the 1920s. It was during the Roaring Twenties, he writes, when those who felt besieged by the forces of secularism first “committed to the idea of a Christian nation with a Protestant-based moral code” and politics as the way “to realize that vision” (p. 2). Williams shows how evangelicals “decided to fight back” by forming advocacy groups that held up traditionalist Protestant norms as the solution to America's drift (p. 13). Though unable ultimately to rise above partisan divides, which kept southern Democrats and northern Republicans apart, evangelicals did begin to alter the political status quo by championing Prohibition, challenging Catholic Democratic candidate Al Smith, and lobbying for radio broadcasting rights (pp. 14–15).