11.2.3 The Future of the Christian Right

The 2020s have marked an uncertain time for the Christian right. Its peak period of organizational coherence and mobilization arguably ran from about 1980 to the early 2000s. The first powerhouse generation of Christian right leaders, such as Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, and Pat Robertson, seems not to have been succeeded by comparably galvanizing figures. The energy now seems to rest more with secular figures who strategically ally themselves with fundamentalism rather than with believers themselves. Examples include Steve Bannon, Donald Trump – and even the Canadian public intellectual Jordan Peterson, whose insistence that society will break down without shared mythic/religious beliefs makes him attractive to many on the Christian right. In America, the absorption of fundamentalism into the Republican Party is such that some ask whether partisan polarization – allegiance to MAGA Republicanism and the loathing of the Democrats – is supplanting religious commitment even among believers. Meanwhile, affiliation with Christianity is rapidly declining, and the religiously unaffiliated and non-believers are the fastest-rising demographics. It remains to be seen whether a 21st century ‘revival’ of politicized Christian fundamentalism can sweep through America or the wider west – or whether the fate of the Christian right is to clatter around as a minor partner hitched to an essentially secular right-wing populism.