Building upon the work that Robert D. Linder and Richard V. Pierard started in Civil Religion and the Presidency, this book begins with examinations of how Lyndon Johnson, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton employed civil religion during their presidencies. Convinced that the influence of civil religion expands beyond the White House, the contributing scholars of this volume also explore the broader effects of civil religion upon Christian denominations and American social development.
This thought-provoking work analyzes the effects of American civil religion upon American politics and Christian denominations. Focusing upon particular presidencies and specific denominations, these essays examine how civil religion has helped to define religio-political discourse, revise the way certain Christians – most notably Baptists, Mennonites, and Pentecostals – related to American life, and framed elements of debates about controversial issues such as gender, nationalism, and civic duty..
About the authors:
Darin D. Lenz is Associate Professor of History at Fresno Pacific University in California. His research focuses on the social history of Christianity in the early modern and modern eras. He completed post-doctoral study at the United States Military Academy, West Point, and has been a Visiting Fellow at New College, University of Edinburgh. His work has been published in a wide range of journals and edited volumes including Remembering Armageddon: Religion and the First World War, edited by Philip Jenkins, as well as the new Bloomsbury Religion in North America series.
Dr. Liam Atchison serves as Senior Vice President of Global Scholars. Liam is a historian who has edited books, monographs, and journals. Most recently, he contributed articles to three encyclopedias: War and Religion (ABC-CLIO, 2017), Evangelical America (ABC-CLIO, 2017), and Religion and Contemporary Politics: A Global Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO,2019).
Keith Bates, Ph.D., is professor of history at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. In addition to his work on the intersection of religion and politics, he writes about the history of evangelicalism and fundamentalism. He is the author of Mainstreaming Fundamentalism: John R. Rice and Fundamentalism’s Public Reemergence (University of Tennessee Press, 2021).
