Keeping up with the Joneses : Progressive Era revivalism in the South and the rise of the Christian Right
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Anderson R. Rouse (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Charles Bolton
Abstract: This dissertation examines the development of the Christian Right (also known as the New Christian Right) in the late twentieth century by focusing on its roots in Progressive Era revivalism and, in particular, the careers and beliefs of Samuel Porter Jones (1847-1906), better known as Sam P. Jones, and Robert Reynolds Jones, Sr. (1883-1968), or Bob Jones. While Sam Jones is largely forgotten today, and Bob Jones is most remembered for the bastion of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism that bears his name (Bob Jones University), both evangelists became household names during their respective careers. As their campaigns crisscrossed Progressive Era America, these men attracted audiences of thousands and filled the pages of newspapers from Honolulu to Hoboken with reprints of and excerpts from their dramatic and quotable sermons. Sam Jones and Bob Jones also became inextricably connected with Progressive reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both evangelists were leading proponents for local and, ultimately, national Prohibition. Additionally, both Sam Jones and Bob Jones campaigned for gubernatorial candidates and involved themselves in municipal politics, and Sam Jones was even (briefly) a candidate in the 1898 Georgia gubernatorial election. For the Joneses, the sawdust trails of tent revivals and the campaign trails of their political allies all led to the same destination – a Christian America. Sam Jones and Bob Jones shared remarkably similar visions for what that America should look like. First, and most importantly, these evangelists viewed the Evangelical home as the foundation of a righteous society. For this idealized home to persist, men, women, and children each had their own vital obligations. The Joneses believed that fathers should be sober, hardworking, and devout, mothers should be submissive, domesticated, and pure, and children should be obedient. Christian manhood and womanhood were major concerns of these religious leaders. No threat to this vision of domestic life could be tolerated, and both men viewed their political activism as crusades to protect the home. Second, the Joneses were committed to racial separation and white supremacy. They believed that God had established racial differences and that attempts to force integration or social equality would end in disaster. Finally, Sam Jones and Bob Jones advanced the idea that Christians had a divine mandate to reform society not only through religious conversion but also through political action. A Christian America would be created both by salvation and legislation. These beliefs aligned closely with the ideology of the Progressive Movement. The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies of the 1910s and 1920s led many Evangelicals, like Bob Jones, to focus on building distinctly Evangelical institutions (including colleges). Still, these beliefs persisted into the post-World War II period and were reborn in the 1970s and 1980s as the Christian Right, which, like the Progressives of the Gilded Age, sought to reform society and rescue American homes from the threats of modern life. Ultimately, Christian Nationalists of the twenty-first century, the Christian Right of the 1970s and 1980s, and Progressive revivalists like Sam Jones and Bob Jones are united by a common purpose – to create (or preserve) a Christian nation through both the transformative power of religious conversion and the coercive power of the state.
Keeping up with the Joneses : Progressive Era revivalism in the South and the rise of the Christian Right
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Created on 5/1/2024
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2024
- Keywords
- Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, Progressivism, Revivalism, The Christian Right, The Gilded Age