About this item
From an esteemed scholar of American religion and sexuality, a sweeping account of the century of religious conflict that produced our culture wars. Gay marriage, transgender rights, birth control -- sex is at the heart of many of the most divisive political issues of our age. The origins of these conflicts, historian R. Marie Griffith argues, lie in sharp disagreements that emerged among American Christians a century ago. From the 1920s onward, a once-solid Christian consensus regarding gender roles and sexual morality began to crumble, as liberal Protestants sparred with fundamentalists and Catholics over questions of obscenity, sex education, and abortion. Both those who advocated for greater openness in sexual matters and those who resisted new sexual norms turned to politics to pursue their moral visions for the nation. Moral Combat is a history of how the Christian consensus on sex unraveled, and how this unraveling has made our political battles over sex so ferocious and so intractable.
About the Author
Marie Griffith, the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, is currently the director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and the editor of the Center's journal, Religion & Politics. She previously taught at Harvard, Princeton, and Northwestern. A Chattanooga native, she holds degrees from Harvard and the University of Virginia.
Her books include God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (1997) , Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (2004) , Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance (co-edited with Barbara Dianne Savage, 2006) , Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States (co-edited with Melani McAlister, 2008) , and American Religions: A Documentary History (2007) . Her newest book, is Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics, which Basic Books will publish in fall 2017.
Griffith is a frequent media commentator and public speaker on current issues pertaining to religion and politics, including the changing profile of American evangelicals and ongoing conflicts over gender, sexuality, and marriage.
