Falwell Inc.

Falwell Inc.
Author: Dirk Smillie
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2016-03-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1250113903

Spiritual Street Fighter. Radical Educator. Christian Entrepreneur. The late Reverend Jerry Falwell was a controversial and divisive religious and political figure whose legacy will long outlive him. Falwell Inc. is the first close examination of how he built his conservative empire, from the inner workings of the fund-raising juggernauts behind his church, university, and conservative causes, to the explosive growth of Liberty University, founded by Falwell to mint conservative lawyers, judges, and politicans. Falwell's religious ventures are now in the hands of his two very different sons. They are expanding their father's empire beyond what he ever achieved. Investigative reporter Dirk Smillie reveals the financial rapids Reverend Falwell and son Jerry Jr. hit when business failures piled up $100 million in debt and nearly sank his school and ministry. Smillie uncovers the extraordinary impact Falwell, in saving his spiritual enterprises, has had on Lynchburg, Virginia, and how savvy real estate investments and relentless fund-raising saved the empire. Falwell Inc. details the spreading influence his legacy continues to exert on our country. Falwell Inc. is above all an astonishing behind-the-curtains look at a powerful but flawed man and his multimillion-dollar business, political, religious, and education enterprises, by a reporter with unprecedented access to the family.

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell
Author: Macel Falwell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2008-05-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416596437

An intimate perspective into the life of the most visible religious leader in America, as told and authorized by his wife. Jerry Falwell played a pivotal role in the American religious and political scene for the last thirty years. As a constant voice for the Christian Right, and with his strong affirmations for family values, he remained outspoken about his beliefs and vision for revolutionized morals and social reform, including issues that will greatly affect the upcoming 2008 elections. Readers will be treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the private life of Jerry Falwell, giving insight into his most publicized and controversial events, such as: His friendship with Ronald Reagan His relationship to Larry Flynt What led to the concept and formation of the Moral Majority The reaction to his September 11 remarks Macel Falwell, Rev. Falwell's widow, provides this official biography of the founder of the Moral Majority. Along with never-before-seen photographs, Macel gives a personal viewpoint and tells readers stories from across the decades, including some from his children, that show the man behind the passion.

The Radical Mind

The Radical Mind
Author: Chelsea Ebin
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2024-08-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0700637001

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.

The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America

The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America
Author: David Schultz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1234
Release: 2015-04-10
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1317457137

Driven by the growing reality of international terrorism, the threats to civil liberties and individual rights in America are greater today than at any time since the McCarthy era in the 1950s. At this critical time when individual freedoms are being weighed against the need for increased security, this exhaustive three-volume set provides the most detailed coverage of contemporary and historical issues relating to basic rights covered in the United States Constitution. The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America examines the history and hotly contested debates surrounding the concept and practice of civil liberties. It provides detailed history of court cases, events, Constitutional amendments and rights, personalities, and themes that have had an impact on our freedoms in America. The Encyclopedia appraises the state of civil liberties in America today, and examines growing concerns over the limiting of personal freedoms for the common good. Complete with selected relevant documents and a chronology of civil liberties developments, and arranged in A-Z format with multiple indexes for quick reference, The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America includes in-depth coverage of: freedom of speech, religion, press, and assembly, as outlined in the first amendment; protection against unreasonable search and seizure, as outlined in the fourth amendment; criminal due process rights, as outlined in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments; property rights, economic liberties, and other rights found within the text of the United States Constitution; Supreme Court justices, presidents, and other personalities, focusing specifically on their contributions to or effect on civil liberties; concepts, themes, and events related to civil liberties, both practical and theoretical; court cases and their impact on civil liberties.

Red Dynamite

Red Dynamite
Author: Carl R. Weinberg
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2021-10-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501759310

In Red Dynamite, Carl R. Weinberg argues that creationism's tenacious hold on American public life depended on culture-war politics inextricably embedded in religion. Many Christian conservatives were convinced that evolutionary thought promoted immoral and even bestial social, sexual, and political behavior. The "fruits" of subscribing to Darwinism were, in their minds, a dangerous rearrangement of God-given standards and the unsettling of traditional hierarchies of power. Despite claiming to focus exclusively on science and religion, creationists were practicing politics. Their anticommunist campaign, often infused with conspiracy theory, gained power from the fact that the Marxist founders, the early Bolshevik leaders, and their American allies were staunch evolutionists. Using the Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a starting point, Red Dynamite traces the politically explosive union of Darwinism and communism over the next century. Across those years, social evolution was the primary target of creationists, and their "ideas have consequences" strategy instilled fear that shaped the contours of America's culture wars. By taking the anticommunist arguments of creationists seriously, Weinberg reveals a neglected dimension of antievolutionism and illuminates a source of the creationist movement's continuing strength. Thanks to generous funding from Indiana University and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Covenant Brothers

Covenant Brothers
Author: Daniel G. Hummel
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812296249

Weaving together the stories of activists, American Jewish leaders, and Israeli officials in the wake of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Covenant Brothers portrays the dramatic rise of evangelical Christian Zionism as it gained prominence in American politics, Israeli diplomacy, and international relations after World War II. According to Daniel G. Hummel, conventional depictions of the Christian Zionist movement—the organized political and religious effort by conservative Protestants to support the state of Israel—focus too much on American evangelical apocalyptic fascination with the Jewish people. Hummel emphasizes instead the institutional, international, interreligious, and intergenerational efforts on the part of Christians and Jews to mobilize evangelical support for Israel. From missionary churches in Israel to Holy Land tourism, from the Israeli government to the American Jewish Committee, and from Billy Graham's influence on Richard Nixon to John Hagee's courting of Donald Trump, Hummel reveals modern Christian Zionism to be an evolving and deepening collaboration between Christians and the state of Israel. He shows how influential officials in the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs and Foreign Ministry, tasked with pursuing a religious diplomacy that would enhance Israel's standing in the Christian world, combined forces with evangelical Christians to create and organize the vast global network of Christian Zionism that exists today. He also explores evangelicalism's embrace of Jewish concepts, motifs, and practices and its profound consequences on worshippers' political priorities and their relationship to Israel. Drawing on religious and government archives in the United States and Israel, Covenant Brothers reveals how an unlikely mix of Christian and Jewish leaders, state support, and transnational networks of institutions combined religion, politics, and international relations to influence U.S. foreign policy and, eventually, global geopolitics.

Encyclopedia of Religious Controversies in the United States [2 volumes]

Encyclopedia of Religious Controversies in the United States [2 volumes]
Author: Bill J. Leonard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 982
Release: 2012-12-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1598848682

This book provides a thorough introduction to historical and contemporary issues in American religion, tackling controversial hot-button topics such as abortion, Intelligent Design, and Scientology. Surveying key aspects of the controversial issues, persons, and religious groups of today, Encyclopedia of Religious Controversies in the United States, Second Edition is a thorough update and expansion of the first edition of this book. This two-volume work contains many new entries that reflect current 21st-century religious controversies. Written by a variety of scholars with varying specializations, the content covers major people, ideas, terms, institutions, groups, books, and events. The A–Z format allows for easy location of materials, a chronology of developments and events enables readers to trace the development of contentious topics over time, and a section of primary document excerpts gives readers further perspective on the issues.