Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T03:17:26.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Effects of Race and the Prosperity Gospel on Politics in the Trump Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2022

Ben Gaskins Open the ORCID record for Ben Gaskins [Opens in a new window]  and
JahAsia Jacobs
Ben Gaskins*
Affiliation:
Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR, USA
JahAsia Jacobs
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
*
Corresponding author: Ben Gaskins, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Prosperity Gospel (PG) has gotten an increasing amount of attention recently as a major theological force driving Americans' political attitudes and identity. A number of studies have also examined how the PG affects racial minorities, especially Black Protestants, for whom it works counter to Social Gospel theology that is commonly associated with Black religious leaders and believers. This paper employs a unique data set that shows the prevalence of PG identity and beliefs across racial and religious categories, comparing the political outputs of the confluence of race, theology, and religious identity.

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 2022 , pp. 579 - 616
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bowler, K (2013) Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, R (2017) Do Americans Believe in the Prosperity Gospel? Here's What the Data Says. Religion in Public Blog. https://religioninpublic.blog/2017/11/21/do-americans-believe-in-the-prosperity-gospel-heres-what-the-data-says/.Google Scholar
Burge, RP, and Djupe, PA (2019) What is a Black Protestant? Why Are They Their Own Category? https://religioninpublic.blog/2019/06/24/what-is-a-blackprotestant-why-are-they-their-own-category/.Google Scholar
Djupe, PA, and Burge, RP (2021) The Prosperity Gospel of Coronavirus Response. Politics and Religion 14, 552–573.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Djupe, PA and Claassen, RL (eds) (2018) The Evangelical Crackup? The Future of the Evangelical–Republican Coalition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Dougherty, KD, Neubert, MJ, and Park, JZ (2019) Prosperity Beliefs and Value Orientations: Fueling or Suppressing Entrepreneurial Activity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 58, 475493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, TW, Dougherty, KD, and Neubert, MJ (2014) Religious Orthodoxy and Entrepreneurial Risk-Taking. Sociological Focus 47(1), 32–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, FC (2010) Entering the Promised Land?: The Rise of Prosperity Gospel and Post-Civil Rights Black Politics. In Wolfe, A and Katznelson, I (eds), Religion and Democracy in the United States: Danger or Opportunity? Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 255–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, H (2020) The Curious Case of Black Conservatives: Construct Validity and the 7-Point Liberal-Conservative Scale. (July 6, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3602209 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3602209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, BA (2009) The Prosperity Gospel and Economic Prosperity: Race, Class, Giving, and Voting. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Sociology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.Google Scholar
Lewis, S, and Timmons, H (2020) Trump Seeks to Shore Up Evangelical Support at “Prosperity Gospel” Church. Reuters Politics, January 3, 2020.Google Scholar
Lin, TT-R (2020) Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream. Durham: University of North Carolina Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margolis, M (2018) From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, AF, Davis, NT, Garand, JC, and Olson, LR (2016) Religion and Attitudes Toward Redistributive Policies among Americans. Political Research Quarterly 69(1), 121–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDaniel, EL (2016) What Kind of Christian Are You? Religious Ideologies and Political Attitudes. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 55(2), 288–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDaniel, EL (2019) The Prophetic and the Prosperous: Religious Ideologies and the Maintenance of Group Consciousness. Political Research Quarterly 72(2), 488–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDaniel, EL, Dwidar, MA, and Calderon, H (2018) The Faith of Black Politics: The Relationship Between Black Religious and Political Beliefs. Journal of Black Studies 49(3), 256–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDaniel, EL, and Ellington, CG (2008) God's Party? Race, Religion, and Partisanship Over Time. Political Research Quarterly 61, 180–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mencken, FC, Bader, C, and Embry, E (2009) In God We Trust: Images of God and Trust in the United States among the Highly Religious. Sociological Perspectives 52(1), 23–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, DD (2018) The Mystery of Evangelical Trump Support. Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 26(1), 43–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchem, S (2007) Name It and Claim It? Prosperity Preaching and the Black Church. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press.Google Scholar
Molina, A (2020) Latino Protestants More Conservative, Supportive of Trump than Latino Catholics, Poll Finds. National Catholic Reporter. December 3. https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/latino-protestants-more-conservative-supportive-trump-latino-catholics-poll-finds.Google Scholar
Patrikios, S (2013) Self-stereotyping as “Evangelical Republican”: An Empirical Test. Politics & Religion 6(4), 800–820.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philpot, T, and McDaniel, E (2020) Black Religious Beliefs and Political Participation. National Review of Black Politics 1(3), 374–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers-Vaughn, B (2019) “I'm the King of Debt”: Pastoral Reflections on Debt in the Age of Trump. Pastoral Psychology 68(1), 511–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schieman, S, and Jung, JH (2012) “Practical Divine Influence”: Socioeconomic status and Belief in the Prosperity Gospel. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 51(4), 738–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepperd, JA, Pogge, G, Lipsey, NP, Miller, WA, and Webster, GD (2019) Belief in A Loving versus Punitive God and Behavior. Journal of Research on Adolescence (Special Section: Processes of Religious and Spiritual Influence in Adolescence) 29(2), 390–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smidt, C (2013) American Evangelicals Today. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Taylor, JB, Allen Gershon, S, and Pantoja, AD (2018) The Rise of Latino Evangelicals, eds. Claassen, R and Djupe, P (eds). Evangelical Crackup—Will the Evangelical-Republican Coalition Last? Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 144–159.Google Scholar
Thomson, RA, and Froese, P (2018) God, Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes. Sociological Forum 33(2), 334–353. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, JL (2009) Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
White, IK, and Laird, CN (2020) Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wrenn, MV (2019) Consecrating Capitalism: The United States Prosperity Gospel and Neoliberalism. Journal of Economic Issues 53(2), 425–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar