Bible-Carrying Christians Conservative Protestants and Social Power

by Watt, David Harrington

• ISBN13: 9780195068344
• ISBN10: 0195068343
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In the United States, there are hundreds of thousands of Protestant churches whose members habitually carry their Bibles with them. These churches--often referred to as "evangelical" or "fundamentalist"--play a crucial role in shaping American society. In this book, David Watt draws on years of fieldwork to present an elegant reinterpretation of the way that conservative Protestants influence American politics and culture. At the heart of the book is a sympathetic, but far from uncritical, analysis of those forms of social power that are assumed to be natural among Bible-carrying Christians. While outsiders often presuppose that evangelical Christians take for granted the authority of certain institutions (among them the American state, corporations, ministers, men, and heterosexuals), Watt argues that the reality is far more complex. This is a concise and lively book that sheds new light on the way that Bible-carrying Christians influence the way that people in America think--and avoid thinking--about social power.

Author Biography

David Harrington Watt is Associate Professor of History at Temple University.

Table of Contents

Fieldwork	3	(8)
Philadelphia	11	(12)
Social Power	23	(12)
Oak Grove Church	35	(20)
The Philadelphia Mennonnite Fellowship	55	(30)
The Philadelphia Church of Christ	85	(30)
Conclusion	115	(4)
Appendix A: The Interviews	119	(2)
Appendix B: Money Matters	121	(8)
Appendix C: Tables	129	(2)
Notes	131	(16)
Bibliography	147	(14)
Index	161