On this installment of the Orange Wave, Brad traces two intertwined histories. First, the Sun Belt Migration, which led to a massive westward population shift in the 1950s and 1960s and turned Orange County into the nation's hub of defense production. This led in turn into an evangelical wave in Southern California. Second, Brad examines the decline of the Mainline Protestant denominations during the same time period. The breaking of their cultural and political authority opened a space for the Religious Right to rise.

For access to the full series, click here: https://irreverent.supportingcast.fm/products/the-orange-wave-a-history-of-the-religious-right-since-1960

Interviewees: 

Dr. John Compton is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Chapman University. In 2012, he was awarded the Law and Society Association’s annual dissertation prize. His first book, The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution, was published by Harvard University Press in 2014. In 2015, he received the Cromwell Book Prize for excellence in scholarship in the field of American legal history by a junior scholar (for Evangelical Origins). Dr. Compton’s articles have appeared in the Review of Politics, American Political Thought, and the Journal of Supreme Court History. His most recent book is The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Dr. Gerardo Marti is a L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology at Davidson College, President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (2021-2024), Editor of Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review (2012-2021), Chair of the Religion Section of the American Sociological Association (2019-2021), Co-Chair the Religion and Social Science Program Unit of the American Academy of Religion (2009-2016), and Executive Council of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2007-2010).

John Compton, The End of Empathy: Why White Christians Stopped Loving Their Neighbors, Chapters 7 and 8. 

Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt

Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors