| Cold Warriors in the Sunbelt studies the ways in which the Cold War experience shaped the attitudes, values, and beliefs of white evangelicals in the South. It argues that for Southern Baptists in particular---the region's most dominant religious majority---the Cold War provided a cohesive and unifying fabric that informed the worldviews Southern Baptists constructed, shaping how they interpreted everything from global communism, the black freedom movement, the Vietnam War, and controversies regarding the family and gender. This dissertation further contends that the Cold War experience, and the formative influence it had over several decades, laid the groundwork for the political realignment of the South, gradually entrenching Southern Baptists within the Republican Party.;KEYWORDS: Cold War, Religion, South, Baptists, Culture. |
