McChurch - Governing with the Christian right: episodes in Dover, Pa., and other districts might assuage administrators' fears that a religious conservative board ... An article from: School Administrator

Governing with the Christian right: episodes in Dover, Pa., and other districts might assuage administrators' fears that a religious conservative board ... An article from: School Administrator
This digital document is an article from School Administrator, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2006. The length of the article is 3311 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Governing with the Christian right: episodes in Dover, Pa., and other districts might assuage administrators' fears that a religious conservative board majority brings excessive entanglement over religion.
Author: Melissa M. Deckman
Publication: School Administrator (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 63 Issue: 9 Page: 26(5)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Second Coming: The New Christian Right in Virginia Politics

By the early 1990s, the Christian Right was a force to be reckoned with in Virginia politics. In 1993, former Moral Majority leader Michael Farris won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. The following year, Oliver North became the party's candidate for U.S. senator. Both nominations were seen as undisputed evidence of the Christian Right's power in the state's Republican party. Yet, in those years of massive GOP landslides, both candidates lost their elections. These well-publicized campaigns set off bitter tensions between moderate Republicans and Christian social conservatives in Virginia and beyond--and raised new questions about the electability of candidates put forward by the Christian Right.

In Second Coming, Mark Rozell and Clyde Wilcox examine the role of the Christian Right in Virginia Republican politics. After the failures of the national organizations and campaigns of the Christian Right in the 1980s, the movement began focusing its attention on state and local politics. As the home state of the now-defunct Moral Majority and headquarters of the Christian Coalition, Virginia has one of the most visible and best organized Christian Right groups active today.

Building on a history of the Christian Right in Virginia from 1978 through 1992, Second Coming gives a detailed analysis of the 1993 statewide elections and the 1994 senatorial race, all of which attracted national attention. The authors draw on a wealth of sources--mail surveys from delegates to Republican state and national conventions, members of the Fairfax County Republican committee, and members of the Republican central committee; numerous in-person interviews of delegates at the 1993 and 1994 state conventions; and more than 100 in-depth interviews with Virginia Republicans and Christian Right leaders and activists.

Second Coming places Virginia politics in a national context and offers a revealing look at the struggles between Republican party centrists and Christian Right activists. With the struggle for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination well under way, Rozell and Wilcox offer an invaluable primer on the workings of the Christian Right--how its members make their voices heard at party conventions, get out the conservative vote, and make their presence felt in elections with strength far beyond their numbers."

Second Coming provides a superb treatment of the Religious Right in its homeland, Virginia. Treating a single state in which it has had success, the authors explore the Religious Right in all its roles--as political movement, party faction, and interest group--and they focus on tensions within the movement between the more pragmatic and the more purist factions. This book is an essential work for anyone who wants to understand not just the Religious Right, but politics in the United States in the 1990's and beyond. I highly recommend it."--Ron Rapoport, College of William & Mary

"The Christian Right is a potent force in American politics, but nowhere more so than in the State of Virginia. Rozell and Wilcox have done an outstanding job in explaining the Christian Right: who they are; what they want; and why they'll be around for a long, long time."--Richard N. Bond, former chairman, Republican National Committee

"The 'Old Dominion' is the cradle of the Christian Right, being the home state of both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Rozell and Wilcox have provided a fascinating and highly readable case study of the movement on its own turf that reveals its origins, present power, and future prospects. The authors answer a pressing question: will the 'second coming' of the Christian Right be a brief visit or a longer stay?"--John C. Green, University of Akron

Customer Review: Picks up where THE DYNAMIC DOMINION leaves off.
PICKS UP WHERE THE DYNAMIC DOMINION LEAVES OFF - in that it was written later. I still, however found it to be an another excellent accounting of the history of Republican politics in the Commonwealth of Virginia. SECOND COMING goes into great detail about the nomination and candidacy of Lieutenant Gubernatorial hopeful Michael Farris in 1993 and US Senate hopeful Col. Oliver L. North in 1994 through the use of hands on research and interviews with many party activists. Though I liked the book very much, I feel that too much emphasis was placed on the oppinions and feelings of people from Northern Virginia and not enough was said about the oppinions and feelings of people from Richmond and Hampton Roads. The basic feeling that I got from the book is that, although Farris and North ultimately lost their elections, their races were relatively close, proving to me that the Religious Right will be a force to reckoned with in Virginia Politics for many years to come.