Several PRA staff attended this year’s Pray Vote Stand Summit, sending twice-daily (anonymous) dispatches from the nation’s most influential Christian Right political conference (once known as the Values Voter Summit).
In addition to documenting, analyzing, and distilling the most critical messages and trends from a three-day conference, Heron Greenesmith and Ben Lorber also shared their “final thoughts” in the concluding post.
Reflecting on his experience, Lorber writes: “In an era of widespread uncertainty, Christian Right leaders sell meaning and purpose, belonging, and comfort to frightened and lonely people in order to enlist them as foot soldiers in a dreadful cause.”
For their part, having observed that the crowd “laughed quickly and loudly at any joke at trans people’s expense,” Greenesmith closes with a haunting question: “Standing among the laughter and the disgust in that hall, I felt the gulf between us. How do we build any progress with people who fundamentally believe that bodily autonomy shouldn’t exist?”
You can also find a list of the dispatches below at a single URL here.
Pray Vote Stand 2022 Kicks Off With Some Head-Scratchers on Predictable Topics
Barna Plays God, School Board Boot Camp, and the Birth of the ‘SAGECON’: Day 3
DeSantis is a No-Show, the Right’s ‘Secret Sauce,’ and Final Thoughts on Pray Vote Stand
