The term Religious Right is a broad label applied by both scholars and critics to a number of political and religious movements and groups that primarily are active around conservative and right wing social issues.

Sometimes the term Religious Right is used interchangeably with the term Christian Right, although some argue for a distinction. The Christian Right in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, for example, has made efforts to reach out to Orthodox Jews and Muslim social conservatives, especially in building coalitions against abortion and same-sex marriage. In New Zealand, there was smaller conservative Muslim co-belligerency against the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, although many New Zealand fundamentalist Protestants are Christian Zionists, and oppose religious freedom for Muslims, thus negating any initial moves since then. Thus, on some issues, there is a broader interfaith Religious Right that exists as a tactical coalition. The main article on the topic of politically active conservative Christians in the United States and other Western societies is at the Christian Right page.

At the United Nations level, conservative interfaith NGOs co-operate over issues of gender, reproductive and sexual health, lesbian and gay rights, family and bioethical policies. The World Congress of Families is one particularly important interfaith forum for that purpose.

While a lonely voice on the political and religious spectrum, the Jewish Task Force is the most activist in religious right activity. While organisations like "Jews for Morality","Jews for Life," "Toward Tradition" and the "International Committee for Truth about the Holocaust" do exist, these groups are mostly used for commentary. All criticize liberalism, and liberal Jews within Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative Judaism.

In the case of Muslim social conservatives, the World Congress of Families may be difficult to sustain as a forum for conservative Christian/Islamic co-belligerency, given increasing US-Iranian international tensions, the Iraq War and Israel-Palestine conflict, which means that foreign policy overshadows any shared social conservatism that might attract conservative interfaith co-operation.

Many object that the term Religious Right involves stereotyping by leftwing political activists. Others believe that such stereotyping is minimal, and the term "religious right" is used more often than other similar terms (such as "religious left") simply because in the United States a significant number of evangelical Christians are allied with right-wing political movements. This is not as true in the United Kingdom, but this observation is as valid for New Zealand, whose Christian Right is heavily influenced by US Christian Right discourse, tactics and strategies, and has a small, mostly Reform Judaism-aligned Jewish population.

See also

• Christian right
• Evangelical left
• Family values
• Judeo-Christian
• Evangelicalism
• Fundamentalism
• Dominionism
• Dominion Theology
• Christian Zionism
• Pat Robertson
• Christian Broadcasting Network
• The 700 Club
• Focus on the Family
• Moral Majority

Contrast: Christian left

References

• Armstrong, Karen (2001). The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-39169-1
• Brasher, Brenda E. (2001). The Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415922445
• Diamond, Sara. 1995. Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. New York: Guilford.
• Marsden; George M. (1980). Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 Oxford University Press, (^*)
• Marty, Martin E. and R. Scott Appleby (eds.). The Fundamentalism Project. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • (1991). Volume 1: Fundamentalisms Observed. ISBN 0-226-50878-1
  • (1993). Volume 2: Fundamentalisms and Society. ISBN 0-226-50880-3
  • (1993). Volume 3: Fundamentalisms and the State. ISBN 0-226-50883-8
  • (1994). Volume 4: Accounting for Fundamentalisms. ISBN 0-226-50885-4
  • (1995). Volume 5: Fundamentalisms Comprehended. ISBN 0-226-50887-0
• Martin, William. (1996). With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, New York: Broadway Books.
• Ribuffo, Leo P. (1983). The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Shapiro, Ben. Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth (ISBN 0785261486), 2004.
• Shapiro, Ben. Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future (ISBN 0895260166), Regnery, 2005.

Christian writers | Christian evangelicalism | Christian fundamentalism | Christian group structuring | Religion and politics | Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity

宗教右派