Journal of Political Science Volume 23 Number 1 Article 6 November 1995 Christian Coalition: The Evolving Unity of the Fundamentalist Right Oran P. Smith Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/jops Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Oran P. (1995) "Christian Coalition: The Evolving Unity of the Fundamentalist Right," Journal of Political Science: Vol. 23 : No. 1 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/jops/vol23/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Politics at CCU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Political Science by an authorized editor of CCU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CHRISTIAN COALITION: THE EVOLVING UNITY OF THE FUNDAMENTALIST RIGHT Oran P. Smith, Universityof South Carolina The earliest studies into the voting behavior of religious people classified religious voters very simply: Protestant, Catholic, Jew. This simplistic understanding has given way in the last 35 years to much more intense scrutiny of the differences within Protestantism, Catholicism, and even Jewry at the ballot box. The most recent analysis has broken down Protestantism further, sifting out the differences between Main Line Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, and Fundamental ists in political behavior. This article will attempt to take this progression in the literature one step further. Instead of subdividing Protestantism into parts and analyzing the distinctions, we will attempt to blend what we have learned from the voting behavior literature with theories of interest groups and social movements to subdivide a part of Protestantism, the Fundamentalis t Right.