Antebellum evangelicals campaigned for causes the modern Religious Right opposes

Evidence

The program of social reform unleashed by Finney and other evangelicals early in the nineteenth century stands in marked contrast to the agenda of the Religious Right. For antebellum evangelicals, benevolence took many forms, including education, prison reform, and advocacy for the poor and for the rights of women. Many evangelicals, seeking to obey the commands of Jesus to love their enemies and turn the other cheek, enlisted in efforts to oppose violence and war; I’ve even discovered a reference to an evangelical campaign for gun control. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 47

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: the alleged antebellum evangelical gun-control campaign — what exactly it was and what it reveals about ‘Christian nationalism’ claims on the Second Amendment today.
• CANDY: Evangelicals once pushed gun control and women’s rights — a neat, striking counter to modern caricatures.
• XREF: connects to: American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 41; Antebellum evangelicals pursued education, prison reform, women’s rights, and even gun control — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 46; Early evangelicals championed women’s rights until reactionary fundamentalism displaced egalitarianism — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 64 (+1 more)

Related

• Antebellum evangelicals pursued education, prison reform, women’s rights, and even gun control (similarity 0.95)
• American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right (similarity 0.84)
• Northern evangelicals of the era backed antislavery and immigrant public schooling (similarity 0.82)
• The Second Awakening drove determined evangelical mobilization toward equality despite imperfect methods (similarity 0.80)
• Early evangelical responses to civil rights were divided along left and fundamentalist lines (similarity 0.80)
• Early evangelicals championed women’s rights until reactionary fundamentalism displaced egalitarianism (similarity 0.78)
• The Religious Right includes more than fundamentalists (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right #corroborates (0.95) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 41
• Antebellum evangelicals pursued education, prison reform, women’s rights, and even gun control #exemplifies (0.90) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 46
• Early evangelicals championed women’s rights until reactionary fundamentalism displaced egalitarianism #exemplifies (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 64