Wrestling Against Flesh and Blood: Social and Psychological Influences on the Evolution of the New Christian Right

Abstract

This dissertation explores the motivations behind the political attitudes and behaviors of Evangelical Christians in the United States. I develop a theory of Evangelical politics that blends theories of social identity threat with a theory of cognitive dissonance. I argue that Evangelicals felt acute identity threats to their religious institutions beginning in the 1980s, and these threats motivated to participate in politics, searching for and supporting culturally conservative candidates that championed their religious liberties. Repeated disappointments in the political realm, however, generated considerable cognitive dissonance that needed to be resolved. Across two original experiments and three national surveys, I test the argument that threat motivates Evangelicals to political action, and the experience of political disappointment and dissonance lead them to pursue dissonance reduction strategies in the form of denigrating political opponents and adopting alternative issue priorities to justify their support of political conservatives.