New Christian Right In Contemporary American Politics

New Christian Right (NCR) refers to Christian conservatives who, holding orthodoxy theological and political views, are willing to be involved in American politics. The primary constituency of the NCR movement is white evangelicals Protestants, but it also draws support from politically conservative Catholics, Jews, and occasionally secularists. Dissatisfied with the eclipse of traditional religious values and morality, NCR first appeared to be social problem muckrakers, initially focusing exclusively on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and school prayer, etc. But being impatient with limited gains achieved during the 1980s, the second generation of NCR leaders decided that they would play political games according to political rules. Political pragmatism and improved tactics, indeed, help the movement to accomplish unprecedented policy gains.The body of the dissertation includes eight parts altogether.Chapter 1 mainly discusses the characteristics and historical evolution of American Christian. From the perspective of American history of thoughts and culture, three ideas influence American Christian, which are Puritanism, Renaissance and pragmatism. The basic characteristic of American Christian is secularization which does not mean the disappearance of religion, but the enlargement to secular field. After years' historical evolution, the base of American civilization is still Protestant tradition.Chapter 2 mainly discusses the rise of New Christian Right during the end of 1970s. From the perspective of history, the rise of New Christian Right is another represent of religion revival during American history. Christian fundamentalism during the 1900s, which emphasized traditional family value, moral value is also the reason for the rise of New Christian Right. Besides, change of church's political and economic positions, as well as the modernization of American society, which made social values threatened and church's prestige declined, made it urgent for New Christian Right to reestablish religious values.Chapter 3 mainly discusses the development of New Christian Right during 1990s as well as the process of its adapting to secular politics. Moral Majority is the largest New Christian Right group to openly involve American politics during the 1970s while Christian Coalition is the largest during the 1990s. Christian Coalition adjusted their political style in addressing social problems, improved their political tactics by adopting political pragmatism and incrementalism, and accepted mainline agendas in order to penetrate traditional Christian values into American policies.Chapter 4 mainly discusses the reasons why New Christian Right involved in American politics. The foundation of America was the result of Christian culture and the separation of state and church gives the state and church equal opportunities of development. New Christian has three goals when involving in America politics, making evangelicals involve politics, aligning with Republic Party, changing American public policies.Chapter 5 mainly discusses the methods and characteristics of New Christian Right when participating in American politics. Religious groups, as part of interest groups, usually have many ways to influence the decisions of public policies. As a social force to participate in American politics, the most outstanding characteristic of New Christian Right is to mobilize immediately its social resources and form strong and public political influence.Chapter 6 mainly discusses the involvement of New Christian Right into American national elections. To religious groups, the most effective way to influence politics is to involve in national elections. Since 1980s New Christian Right became an important force of Republican Party to win the elections. From then on white evangelicals aligned with Republican Panty and took place of the historical position of Protestant mainline.Chapter 7 mainly discusses how New Christian Right changes American public policies by political participation. Dissatisfied with the decline of traditional religious values and moral ideas, New Christian Right first was concerned with the issues related to moral disputes, such as abortion, homosexuality and school prayer etc. During 1990s New Christian Right began to adopt political pragmatism and incrementalism and expand its agendas to such fields as economy, education, health care and foreign affairs.Chapter 8 mainly discusses the political influences of New Christian Right and its limitations. Although New Christian Right has a grand plan to change drastically part of American public policies and has achieved a lot, it is still far from achieving its ultimate goals. In most cases, New Christian Right has to accept compromise in order to get incremental policy gains. In this sense, NCR movement cannot be reckoned as one of the deciding forces in US policy-making process.Being persistent and powerful in American political arena, NCR makes a valuable topic for academic research. An appropriate evaluation of NCR should be such: NCR is a powerful, but not deciding force in American policy-making process. Having sensed the impossibility of attaining its ultimate policy goals, NCR is willing to accept compromises to get incremental gains. Their purpose in doing so is to remain vigorous on the political stage and to prepare for fighting for future success when the right time comes. Therefore, unless NCR attains its final aims, it is for sure that the movement will always be around in the American political arena.