> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
> [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Charles Brown
> Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 12:53 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Deconstructing Christian Republican Cults
> (was Proyecton Nathan Newman and Reconstruction )
>
>
> CB: In terms of Left attitude to rightwing Evangelists, we
> might investigate and research "backsliders". What are the
> experiences and problems that lead to religious zealots
> becoming disillusioned with and leaving this Republican
> cultism ? Perhaps some of the methods developed by cult
> deprogrammers in the last thirty years can be applied to the
> current crop of Christian Republicans. I bet some
> sociologists have already started to collect this data. Left
> anthropologists might write ethnographies on this cult-ure.
Much of this discussion is so totally disconnected from actual sociological research into conservative Christian evangelicals that it might as well be a right-wing parody of deranged left wing intellectualism.
People in conservative Christian evangelical or fundamentalist social and political movements are not in "cults."
The primary reference book for progressives using sociology to look at the Christian Right is:
Diamond, Sara. 1995. Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. New York: Guilford Press.
The current popular explanation of competing worldviews is:
Lakoff, George. [1996] 2002. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago.
An excellent history by a moderate is:
Marsden, George M. 1982. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925. New York: Oxford University Press.
-Chip "I do this for a living" Berlet