The Orange Wave: A History of the Religious Right Since 1960

Axis Mundi Media
  • 0.0 (0)
  • HISTORY
  • EVERY-TWO-WEEKS SERIES
The Orange Wave: A History of the Religious Right Since 1960

In this ten-part docu-series Dr. Bradley Onishi (co-host of Straight White American Jesus) uses Orange County, CA as a prism in order to trace the rise of the Religious Right through homegrown activism, local politics, presidential campaigns, billionaire donors, megachurches, media empires, and autocratic regimes at home and abroad. Combining personal storytelling with scholarly research and interviews with leading scholars, the Orange Wave unpacks the inner workings of the Religious Right’s approaches to masculinity, apocalypticism, authoritarian rule, and conspiracy theories.

  1. Episode 1: Oranges and Peanuts

    EPISODE 1

    Episode 1: Oranges and Peanuts

    The Religious Right has not always existed. White evangelicals have not always been the guardians of far-right immigration policies and patriarchal models of the family. In the 19th century, they were often progressive activists fighting for labor rights, abolition, and women’s suffrage. As the example of Jimmy Carter shows, they were a visible and influential part of American politics into the 1970s. How did they transform into the scions of Christian nationalism? Brad explores this history with Professor Randall Balmer of Dartmouth College on the initial episode of The Orange Wave: A History of the Religious Right Since 1960. For access to the full series, click here: https://irreverent.supportingcast.fm/products/the-orange-wave-a-history-of-the-religious-right-since-1960 Randall Balmer is the John Philips Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College. A prize-winning historian and Emmy Award nominee, Randall Balmer holds the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth, the oldest endowed professorship at Dartmouth College. He earned the Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1985 and taught as Professor of American Religious History at Columbia University for twenty-seven years before coming to Dartmouth in 2012. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton, Yale, Northwestern, and Emory universities and in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School from 2004 to 2008. Suggested Reading:  Randall Balmer, Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter (2014) Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America (2006), Chapter 1. Mark Noll, The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney, Chapters 6 and 7.

    42 min
  2. Episode 2: Every End is a Beginning

    EPISODE 2

    Episode 2: Every End is a Beginning

    On this installment of the Orange Wave, Brad traces two intertwined histories. First, the Sun Belt Migration, which led to a massive westward population shift in the 1950s and 1960s and turned Orange County into the nation's hub of defense production. This led in turn into an evangelical wave in Southern California. Second, Brad examines the decline of the Mainline Protestant denominations during the same time period. The breaking of their cultural and political authority opened a space for the Religious Right to rise. For access to the full series, click here: https://irreverent.supportingcast.fm/products/the-orange-wave-a-history-of-the-religious-right-since-1960 Interviewees:  Dr. John Compton is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Chapman University. In 2012, he was awarded the Law and Society Association’s annual dissertation prize. His first book, The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution, was published by Harvard University Press in 2014. In 2015, he received the Cromwell Book Prize for excellence in scholarship in the field of American legal history by a junior scholar (for Evangelical Origins). Dr. Compton’s articles have appeared in the Review of Politics, American Political Thought, and the Journal of Supreme Court History. His most recent book is The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (Oxford University Press, 2020). Dr. Gerardo Marti is a L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology at Davidson College, President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (2021-2024), Editor of Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review (2012-2021), Chair of the Religion Section of the American Sociological Association (2019-2021), Co-Chair the Religion and Social Science Program Unit of the American Academy of Religion (2009-2016), and Executive Council of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2007-2010). John Compton, The End of Empathy: Why White Christians Stopped Loving Their Neighbors, Chapters 7 and 8.  Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors

    3 min
  3. Episode 3: From the Gold Rush to the Tea Party

    EPISODE 3

    Episode 3: From the Gold Rush to the Tea Party

    In the early 1960s, Orange County became the hub for both white evangelical Christianity and libertarian politics. It was the epicenter of the John Birch Society and the Goldwater campaign. This history is crucial for understanding the rise of the Religious Right throughout the 80s and beyond. It was from this soil that Reagan and his evangelical coalition took over the GOP. The racism, conspiracies, and extremism of 1960s libertarian evangelicals in Southern California has remained part of the GOP and the Religious Right from Goldwater to Reagan to the Tea Party and the presidency of Donald Trump. For access to the full series, click here: https://irreverent.supportingcast.fm/products/the-orange-wave-a-history-of-the-religious-right-since-1960 Interviewee:  Dr. Gerardo Marti is a L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology at Davidson College, President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (2021-2024), Editor of Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review (2012-2021), Chair of the Religion Section of the American Sociological Association (2019-2021), Co-Chair the Religion and Social Science Program Unit of the American Academy of Religion (2009-2016), and Executive Council of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2007-2010). Suggested Reading:  Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (WW Norton: 2010) Gerardo Marti, American Blindspot: Race, Class, Religion, and the Trump Presidency (Rowman and Littlefield 2019).  Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton University Press 2015)

    3 min
See All Season 1 (3)

About

In this ten-part docu-series Dr. Bradley Onishi (co-host of Straight White American Jesus) uses Orange County, CA as a prism in order to trace the rise of the Religious Right through homegrown activism, local politics, presidential campaigns, billionaire donors, megachurches, media empires, and autocratic regimes at home and abroad. Combining personal storytelling with scholarly research and interviews with leading scholars, the Orange Wave unpacks the inner workings of the Religious Right’s approaches to masculinity, apocalypticism, authoritarian rule, and conspiracy theories.

Information

  • Channel
    Axis Mundi Media
  • Creator
    Bradley Onishi
  • Episodes
    10
  • Seasons
    1
  • Rating
    Clean

More From Axis Mundi Media

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes and get the latest updates.
Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada