Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Lone Star Religion

Lone Star Religion

Last updated on: March 11, 2015 at 2:00 am by Miles Mullin

Lone Star Religion 2015-03-08T11:35:22-04:00 Miles Mullin

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Rough Country (Princeton University Press, 2014)

Review of Robert Wuthnow, *Rough Country: How Texas Became America’s Most Powerful Bible-Belt State (*Princeton University Press, 2014).

I grew up in Texas in the 1970s and 1980s. During my childhood, Texas was a purple state. Both major parties represented us in the Senate, and the governorship oscillated between Democrats and Republicans. Things have changed quite a bit.

In November 2014, Republicans swept the mid-term elections throughout the United States. In Texas, the margin of victory was surreal, with Republican Governor-Elect Greg Abbott defeating Democratic Candidate Wendy Davis by more than 20 points. Yet how did Texas, which in the 100 years between the end of Reconstruction (1877) and the inauguration of Jimmy Carter (1977) sent only one Republican to the Senate and none to the governor’s mansion, become the geographic locus of the Republican Party? In Rough Country: How Texas Became America’s Most Powerful Bible-Belt State, Princeton Sociologist Robert Wuthnow contends that religion played a major role in that transformation, reaching all the way back to the founding of the Republic of Texas (1836) in order to investigate the grassroots causes of the shift in voter alignment in the Lone Star State.

Texas Turns Purple

Prior to the Civil War, as natural disasters, disease, and potential attack by Native Americans threatened white families that settled Texas, religion brought hope and comfort. It also shaped civilization in the “rough country.” As historian Sidney Mead has persuasively argued, the lack of an established church left America without a central authority empowered to teach virtue to the populace. Instead, various denominations cooperated to shape a generally Protestant public morality.

In the Republic of Texas, they did the same. Over time, schools and communal organizations, informed by Protestantism, took over the functions of teaching and enforcing social norms, all the while developing a symbiotic relationship with the churches. In this context, individualism blossomed, and Texans saw themselves as strong advocates for liberty—“liberty of conscience, liberty from tyranny, and liberty from religious authority”—and viewed government as a potential threat to each of these. As a result, although religious Texans trusted Democrats to maintain the all-important racial status quo, most supported the New Deal with “considerable misgivings,” worrying about the government “gaining too much influence over peoples’ lives.”

On the other side of the 1930s, two sorts of Democrats emerged: an older guard that depended on connections with local business owners who were skeptical about the federal government and a newer breed that more fully embraced the New Deal’s progressive goals. The die was cast for interparty conflict, political realignment, and religious restructuring.

In the 1950s, Texans liked Ike twice, and as the postwar economy surged, so did religion. Texas, along with the nation, was swept up in the postwar revival of religion, and Southern Baptists began to outstrip all other religious groups among white, non-Hispanics in the Lone Star State. Ties between evangelicals and Republican-leaning business interests grew, birthing the sort of dependent-on-private-funding ministries that populate the American evangelical landscape today.

Kennedy’s candidacy pushed Texas Baptists and other evangelicals, who feared the church-state implications of a Roman Catholic president, further towards the Republican Party. By 1961—not 1962, as Wuthnow recounts—Texans elected a Republican to the US Senate, the first since Reconstruction. As oilmen, entrepreneurs, and industrialists deepened their alliances with pro-business politicians and religious leaders in Texas, the internal conflict between conservative, pro-business Democrats and their New Deal counterparts came to a head during the tumultuous 1960s, when progressive activism focused on Civil Rights, anti-war protests, gender equality, sexuality, and abortion. While evangelicals in Texas felt the “liberalization of long-held norms… was fundamentally unbiblical,” Barry Goldwater’s campaign helped establish the Republicans as the party of traditional values, drawing Texas evangelicals closer.

By 1972, Texas had become purple. The Reagan Revolution and the emergence of the Religious Right were on the horizon, and in 1980, 84% of all conservative Protestants in Texas chose Reagan instead of incumbent Jimmy Carter, a fellow born-again Christian.

Rightward Shift

Robert Wuthnow

Rather than painting the rise of the Religious Right as a reactionary backlash, Wuthnow shows its continuity with Texan history. He traces the movement’s origins back to the dawn of religion in the “rough country,” with its sense of responsibility for public morality and its preference for small government. Reagan’s social conservatism affirmed Texas evangelicals’ moral vision, while his free-market rhetoric and small-government ideals fit nicely alongside their discomfort with New Deal progressivism. As the 1980 general election approached, evangelical leaders sensed that the people who filled their congregations and supported their ministries had “enough clout to make a difference.” And they did.

Throughout the 1980s and beyond, the Lone Star State produced a steady stream of conservative white evangelical Republicans such as Ron Paul, Tom DeLay, George W. Bush, Ted Cruz, and Rick Perry. Governor Bush’s evangelical faith and compassionate conservatism allowed white evangelicals to re-embrace their heritage of helping others, while maintaining their commitment to small government. Rick Perry famously convened a prayer rally for the nation, and Lt. Governor-Elect Dan Patrick has authored a short book urging people to read the Bible. Although in other states, such public demonstrations of personal faith might be off-putting to voters, in Texas they are a boon. Texas had become, in the language of the book’s subtitle, “America’s most powerful Bible-belt state.”

Wuthnow recognizes that race shaped all the religious and political developments discussed in Rough Country. As Reconstruction ended (1877), supporting the public good meant maintaining racial inequality. The poll tax, white-only primaries, lynching, and segregation entrenched white privilege. And, while a few white Protestants advocated for equality, others went so far as to support the Ku Klux Klan. Most white Protestant leaders simply avoided “politics,” preferring to emphasize individual responsibility and morality rather than racial equality. The 1960s changed all that. Forced to pick a side, most evangelicals in Texas supported the non-progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which is to say that, implicitly or explicitly, they supported the racial status quo.

Contrary to Randall Balmer, for whom race is the sole cause of evangelicalism’s rightward turn, Wuthnow treats the issue with nuance, identifying the overt racism that often played a role in religious and political developments while recognizing the legitimacy of other factors. In his telling, evangelical concerns regarding the unborn, traditional marriage, and small government might be colored by race, but they are not only about race. They were very much in keeping with the moral caretaking role public Protestantism served in Texas society since 1836.

Different Indeed

Public Domain ( via Wikipedia Commons)

In many ways, Rough Country tells a traditional story of 20th-century American society. After all, Wuthnow bends his tale around the New Deal 1930s and the upending of traditional moral values in the 1960s. In doing so, though, he preserves the autonomy of his subjects, portraying them as actors, not merely acted upon. This is a corrective to his earlier work, The Restructuring of American Religion (1988), which was rightly criticized for painting American Protestants as drifting, willy-nilly, into left- and right-wing identities in synch with broader national developments. As the 20th century came to a close, traditional denominational labels mattered less as religious Americans identified more as conservative (right) or liberal (left) than by any denominational identity.

In Red State Religion (2011), Wuthnow found evidence for his conclusions at the grassroots level. Facilitated by a handful of influential megachurches in the state, late 20th-century evangelicals in Kansas found their primary identity in political causes and coalitions in the face of declining denominational identities. In Rough Country, Wuthnow contends that the opposite occurred in Texas but with the same overall effect.

While other denominations in Texas experienced the same sort of decline as in the rest of the nation, Baptists bucked this trend as fundamentalist (Wuthnow’s term, not mine) Baptists moved the convention to the right during the 1970s. Due to their disproportionate influence in the Lone Star State, this rise in denominational identity pulled large numbers of white Protestant Texans along with them and into the Reagan Revolution, leading Texas to become the “most powerful Bible-belt state.”

Here, Rough Country raises several important interpretative questions. Although Texas Baptists may wish their influence were as great as Wuthnow perceives, he overstates the case. Personally, I suspect that the Reagan Revolution fed the conservative turn in the Southern Baptist Convention just as much as, if not more than, the reverse. This is, of course, a knotty chicken-egg question, but the issues involved go to the heart of Wuthnow’s overarching interpretation of national conservative-liberal realignment. In Texas at least, such realignment did not wholly correspond with declining denominational identity. Perhaps, the same is true in other states. Then again, it might be that religion in Texas is different than in the rest of the country, something those of us who reside here—having once lived elsewhere—intuitively know.

Rough Country combines a careful treatment of religious history in Texas with sociological insights about the way religion functions in people’s lives. Like everything Wuthnow writes, it demands careful attention. Although not an easy read, it is a worthwhile one. A stoutly researched book full of interesting stories and important multi-layered interpretations, Rough Country should be required reading for every evangelical leader concerned with race, religion, or politics. They will come away better informed about many historical matters that have made a lasting impact on politics, race relations, and ministry—not merely in Texas, but throughout the United States.

This review initially appeared online at Christianity Today on March 5, 2015. You can access the original post here.

Books

Evangelicalism

Miles Mullin

Southern Baptist Convention

Greg Abbott

Jimmy Carter

Reagan Revolution

religion and politics

Previous Post

March 10, 2015

"The Enlightenment" and Its Relevance Today

Next Post

March 13, 2015 Persia’s Christian Roots

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe guest post Guest Post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What New Testament letter includes the "fruit of the Spirit"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Hebrews Ephesians James Galatians