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Podcast: New Books in Human Rights
Episode: Gene Zubovich, "Before the Religious Right: Liberal Protestants, Human Rights, and the Polarization of the United States" (UPenn Press, 2022)
Description: The study of the religious right has in many ways overshadowed other strands of U.S. religious history in the 20th century. This is owed in no small part to the powerful political role played by evangelical Christians in the Republican Party today, where they have helped set party positions for the past several decades. However, to focus on this dimension of religious history exclusively misses several other trends. Until the 1960s, the largest and most politically significant churches were mainline Protestant denominations such as the Methodist Church, and these bodies carved out a very different set of politics.