Righting America

A forum for scholarly conversation about Christianity, culture, and politics in the US
Jerry Falwell, Sr. | Righting America

The Christian Right, Dispensational Premillennialism, and Antisemitism

by William Trollinger  Bar Graph showing the rise in anti-semitic incidents in the United States: 2012 – 2021. Via the Anti-Defamation League. A few years ago I was interviewed by a reporter for a national Jewish publication who wanted my take on the fact...

The Bible Told Them So: An Interview with J. Russell Hawkins

by William Trollinger J. Russell (“Rusty”) Hawkins is Professor of Humanities and History in the John Wesley Honors College at Indiana Wesleyan University. He is also author of The Bible Told Them So: How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy, which...

The Same Old Evangelical Enemies

by Rodney Kennedy Editor’s Note: this piece appeared earlier this week at Word&Way. We are happy to share it here for our readers! Book Cover, Righting America at the Creation Museum by Susan L. Trollinger and William Vance Trollinger, Jr. (2016). Historians...

The Christian Right and the Decline of White Evangelicalism

by William Trollinger Update: This post is republished over at Red Letter Christians on July 30, 2021. A participant in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol poses with a Bible. Image credit: John Minchillo/AP via Word and Way . The headlines tell the...

The Seven Biggest “Devils” in Evangelicalism: Names Given

by Rodney Kennedy Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div. from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. The pastor of 7 Southern Baptist churches over the course of 20 years, he pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH)...

Was Jerry Falwell, Jr. the Last Great Fundamentalist Emperor?

by William Trollinger William Bell Riley. Photo courtesy of Minneapolis Star-Tribune. I will get to Jerry Falwell, Jr. in a moment. But first, a look at the first great fundamentalist emperor. I fell in love with the “new social history” at the University of...