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Chronicles how during the second half of the 20th century conservative evangelical groups became increasingly adept at taking advantage of expanded public funding for religious foreign aid, health care, education, and social welfare despite their conservative hostility to the state

In the mid-twentieth century, far more evangelicals supported such "liberal" causes as peace, social justice, and environmental protection. Only gradually did the conservative evangelical faction win dominance, allying with the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and, eventually, George W. Bush. In Countercultural Conservatives Axel Schäfer traces the evolution of a diffuse and pluralistic movement into the political force of the New Christian Right. In forging its complex theological and political identity, evangelicalism did not simply reject the ideas of 1960s counterculture, Schäfer argues. For all their strict Biblicism and uncompromising morality, evangelicals absorbed and extended key aspects of the countercultural worldview. Carefully examining evangelicalism's internal dynamics, fissures, and coalitions, this book offers an intriguing reinterpretation of the most important development in American religion and politics since World War II

The political mobilization of conservative Protestants in the United States since the 1970s is commonly viewed as having resulted from a "backlash" against the alleged iniquities of the 1960s, including the excess-es of the counterculture. In contrast, this article maintains that conservative Protestant efforts to infiltrate and absorb the counterculture contributed to the organizational strength, cultural attractiveness, and politi-cal efficacy of the New Christian Right. The essay advances three arguments: First, that evangelicals did not simply reject the countercultural ideas of the 1960s, but absorbed and extended its key sentiments. Second, that conservative Protestantism's appropriation of countercultural rhetoric and organizational styles played a significant role in the right-wing political mobilization of evangelicals. And third, that the merger of evan-gelical Christianity and countercultural styles, rather than their antagonism, ended up being one of the most enduring legacies of the sixties. In revisiting the relationship between the counterculture and evangelicalism, the essay also explores the larger implications for understanding the relationship between religion and poli-tics. The New Christian Right domesticated genuinely insurgent impulses within the evangelical resurgence. By the same token, it nurtured the conservative components of the counterculture. Conservative Protestant-ism thus constituted a political movement that channeled insurgencies into a cultural form that relegitimized the fundamental trajectories of liberal capitalism and consumerist society. ; A mobilização política dos protestantes conservadores nos Estados Unidos desde os anos 70 é comumente vista como tendo sido o resultado de uma "reação adversa" contra as supostas iniquidades dos anos 60, incluindo os excessos da contracultura. Em contraste, este artigo sustenta que os esforços protestantes conservadores, para se infiltrarem e absorverem a contracultura, contribuíram para a força organizacional, atratividade cultural e eficácia política da Nova Direita Cristã. O ensaio desenvolve três argumentos: primeiro, que os evangélicos não simplesmente rejeitaram as ideias contraculturais dos anos 60, mas absorveram e ampliaram seus sentimentos-chave. Segundo, que a apropriação da retórica e dos estilos organizacionais contraculturais pelo protestantismo conservador desempenhou um papel significativo na mobilização política dos evangélicos de direita. E terceiro, que a fusão do cristianismo evangélico e estilos contraculturais, ao invés de seu antagonismo, acabou sendo um dos legados mais duradouros dos anos sessenta. Ao revisitar a relação entre a contracultura e o evangelismo, o ensaio também explora as implicações maiores para a compreensão da relação entre religião e política. A Nova Direita Cristã dominou os impulsos genuinamente insurgentes dentro do ressurgimento evangélico. Da mesma forma, ela alimentou os componentes conservadores da contracultura. O protestantismo conservador constituiu, assim, um movimento político que canalizou as insurgências para uma forma cultural que relegitimou as trajetórias fundamentais do capitalismo liberal e da sociedade consumista.

Although many observers consider the Bush administration's "faith-based initiative" a unique breach in the wall of separation between church and state, close ties between the federal government and religious agencies are no novelty in the history of American public policy. Since the end of the Second World War, billions of dollars of public funds have been made available to religiously-affiliated hospitals, nursing homes, educational institutions, and social services - institutions which were regarded as vital to Cold War preparedness. By the same token, government use of religious foreign aid agencies, the donation of surplus land and military facilities to religious charities, and the funding of the chaplaincy in the armed forces have undergirded Cold War foreign policy goals. Based on the principle of subsidiarity, post-war public policy thus integrated religious groups into the framework of the welfare and national security state in ways which underwrote both the expansion of the federal government and the growth of religious agencies. Crucially, public funding relations involved not only mainline Protestant, Jewish and Catholic organizations, but also white evangelicals, who had traditionally been the most outspoken opponents of closer ties between church and state. Cold War Anti-Communism, the fear of Catholic or secularist control of public funds, and pragmatic considerations, however, ushered in the gradual revision of their separatist views. Ironically, the programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, so vilified by the Christian Right, pioneered many of the funding streams most beneficial to evangelical providers. Considering that since 1945 the sprawling and loosely organized evangelical movement has become the largest single religious faction in the US, and that conservative Protestants now form the most strongly Republican group in the religious spectrum, these findings are of particular importance. They suggest that Cold War state-building and the resurgence of Evangelicalism mutually reinforced each other in ways which have been largely ignored by scholarship on conservatism and its focus on the "backlash" against the political and cultural upheaval of the 1960s. Based on newly accessible archival materials and a comprehensive review of secondary literature, this paper suggests that the institutional and ideological ties between evangelicals and the state, which developed in the aftermath of the Second World War, are as important in understanding the political mobilization of conservative Protestants as the more recent "culture war" sentiments. ; Beobachter der amerikanischen Politik deuten die so genannte "faith-based initiative" der Bush-Regierung, die eine staatliche Mitfinanzierung religiöser Sozialeinrichtungen ermöglicht, zumeist als einen Versuch, die traditionelle Trennung von Kirche und Staat in den USA zu unterminieren. Bei näherem Hinsehen zeigt sich jedoch, dass bundesstaatliche Gelder bereits seit dem zweiten Weltkrieg in großem Umfang zum Aufbau religiöser Krankenhäuser, Universitäten, internationaler Hilfsorganisationen und sozialer Dienste beigetragen haben. Unter der Ägide des Kalten Krieges wurden religiöse Gruppen institutionell und ideologisch in die Staatsbildung der Nachkriegszeit integriert, die weder eine Rückkehr zum "Nachtwächterstaat" der zwanziger Jahre darstellte, noch auf dem Staatsbegriff des New Deal beruhte. Stattdessen war das spezifische Merkmal des "Cold War state", dass er auf dem Prinzip der Subsidiarität aufbaute, welches den Staat in erster Linie als Geldgeber für den Aufbau einer von privaten, gemeinnützigen und kirchlichen Einrichtungen getragenen sozialstaatlichen Infrastruktur ansah. Zu den besonderen Charakteristika des sich daraus entwickelnden neuen Verhältnisses zwischen Kirche und Staat gehörte, dass konservative protestantische Gruppen, die bislang auf einer strikten Trennung beider Bereiche bestanden, zunehmend in die subsidiaristischen Strukturen eingebunden wurden. Vor allem die Identifikation der Evangelikalen mit dem Antikommunismus und ihre Furcht vor katholischer Dominanz bei der staatlichen Förderung trug zu ihrer neuen Staatsnähe bei. Darüber hinaus profitierten konservative Protestanten insbesondere während der Ausweitung des Wohlfahrtsstaates in den sechziger Jahren (Great Society), die sie ansonsten als Beginn des moralischen Verfalls und staatlichen Versagens angreifen, zunehmend von öffentlichen Mitteln. Dies wirft die Frage auf, welche Rolle diese neue Hinwendung zum Staat für die politische Mobilisierung der Evangelikalen spielte, die in der Forschung zumeist erst in den achtziger Jahren als Resultat der Ablehnung gegenkultureller Impulse angesiedelt wird. Unter Rückgriff auf Theorien der sozialen Bewegungen zeigt der Beitrag auf, dass die ideologische und institutionelle Integration in den Staatsbildungsprozess seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg ebenso wichtig war für das politische Wiedererwachen der Evangelikalen wie ihre Reaktion gegen "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll" seit den späten siebziger Jahren.

"Assessing the grand American evangelical missionary venture to convert the world, this international group of leading scholars reveals how theological imperatives have intersected with worldly imaginaries from the nineteenth century to the present. Countering the stubborn notion that conservative Protestant groups have steadfastly maintained their distance from governmental and economic affairs, these experts show how believers' ambitious investments in missionizing and humanitarianism have connected with worldly matters of empire, the Cold War, foreign policy, and neoliberalism"--

"Assessing the grand American Evangelical missionary venture to convert the world, this international group of leading scholars reveals how theological imperatives have intersected with worldly imaginaries from the nineteenth century to the present. Countering the stubborn notion that conservative Protestant groups have steadfastly maintained their distance from governmental and economic affairs, these experts show how believers' ambitious investments in missionizing and humanitarianism have connected with worldly matters of empire, the Cold War, foreign policy, and neoliberalism"--