Religious Right Thrives in a Red-Hot Vacuum: Leo Ribuffo Responds

Some of the disagreement between Peter Laarman and me derives from our different perspectives. I wrote about the latest Christian right from the perspective of a historian who—odd as it may seem these days—was trying for a little detachment. Laarman responds from the perspective of a theologically liberal clergyman and social gospel activist. Yet a difference in sensibility also lies at the center of our disagreement. Unlike Laarman, I am not viscerally appalled because many Americans choose to be Protestant fundamentalists or evangelicals. Thus I feel no need to reduce their beliefs to social-psychological symptoms, to ridicule them as members of the “Church of the Galloping Christ (or whatever),” or to join in the comfo...