The Political Economy of American Evangelicalism

• In Event: 50660 - Section on Marxist Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3: Power and Stratification

Abstract

Religion in the United States has closely paralleled the nation’s political economy. Rather than looking at church-state relations, I examine church-economic relations as more explanatory of the character of American religion and Evangelicalism in particular. Evangelicalism has a unique attachment to less regulated American capitalism and valorizes individual private property and unincumbered accumulation. Evangelicalism’s anxieties about secularists, race, immigration, and LGBTQ communities sets it up as a perfect functional warrior on behalf of capitalism. This paper aims to explore the origins of this situation in the political economy of evangelicalism.

Author

• Nicholas Budimir, Muskegon Community College