Overview

Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rev. Jerry Falwell—religious leaders who popularized theology through media campaigns designed to persuade the public In Religion in the Public Square, James M. Patterson considers religious leaders who popularized theology through media campaigns designed to persuade the public. Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rev. Jerry Falwell differed profoundly on issues of theology and politics, but they shared an approach to public ministry that aimed directly at changing how Americans understood the nature and purpose of their country. From the 1930s through the 1950s, Sheen was an early adopter of paperbacks, radio, and television to condemn totalitarian ideologies and to defend American Catholicism against Protestant accusations of divided loyalty. During the 1950s and 1960s, King staged demonstrations and boycotts that drew the mass media to him. The attention provided him the platform to preach Christian love as a political foundation in direct opposition to white supremacy. Falwell started his own church, which he developed into a mass media empire. He then leveraged it during the late 1970s through the 1980s to influence the Republican Party by exhorting his audience to not only ally with religious conservatives around issues of abortion and the traditional family but also to vote accordingly. Sheen, King, and Falwell were so successful in popularizing their theological ideas that they won prestigious awards, had access to presidents, and witnessed the results of their labors. However, Patterson argues that Falwell's efforts broke with the longstanding refusal of religious public figures to participate directly in partisan affairs and thereby catalyzed the process of politicizing religion that undermined the Judeo-Christian consensus that formed the foundation of American politics.

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9781512826906

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Reviews

"""Patterson's work fills a necessary gap in scholarly examinations of religion and public life. It is balanced in its treatment of the subject matter while advocating that the rise of the Religious Right signaled a reversal of the role that the clergy played in American life for most of its history. If American religion, now rapidly in decline, has any hope of revitalization, Patterson is right to note that it will come through a renewed attention to its own foundations and their relevance to public life, and not a reliance on either complete withdrawal from the public sphere nor direct political action as the vehicle of religious 'success.'""-- ""Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History"" ""This provocative volume brings together three religious leaders that make for an odd grouping: Fulton Sheen, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jerry Falwell. Patterson argues that these three men strained against the boundary between religion and politics in the United States, which finally collapsed under the pressure placed on church-state separation by Falwell's religious right...Patterson uncovers some of the deft theological moves these three figures made in order to bring religion to bear on a liberal democracy. They demonstrate the primacy of the church in ministerial politics and suggest that the one constant in church-state relationships is a perversion of both institutions.""-- ""Journal of Church and State"" ""[A] thoughtful study...well worth reading...to remind readers of how significant a figure Sheen was over a long period of time, and how Falwell's often despised efforts fit within a longer tradition of Christianity's diverse voice within the public square of American society. ""-- ""Commonweal"" ""Patterson takes the reader on an in-depth exploration of three public figures who exemplify both the promise and the peril of clergy in American public life: Fulton J. Sheen, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jerry Falwell. Patterson skillfully places each man's life and career into their political and theological milieus, making creative use of existing frameworks like the American jeremiad, civil religion, and Hugh Heclo's 'Great Denouement.'...[L]ucidly argued and clearly organized, and shed[s] a great deal of light on both the individual figures and their broader cultural and political contexts. ""-- ""The Journal of Southern History"" ""Informative and provocative, Religion in the Public Square is original in its interpretations and judicious in its assessments. James M. Patterson makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the role of preachers and public religion in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century""-- ""Robert Kraynak, Colgate University"""

Author Information

James M. Patterson is Associate Professor of Politics at Ave Maria University.

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