Free Market Family Values:
Conservative Christians and the Republican Party

Lecture Recording | Spring 2026

Step into one of the most complex and consequential intersections in modern American life: where faith, economics, and politics converge. In this illuminating lecture, Professor Karen Seat invites you to look beyond headlines and assumptions to explore how conservative Christian thought has helped shape the Republican Party over the past half century. Drawing on her research as a scholar of American religion, she traces the historical roots of evangelical influence and reveals a central, often overlooked insight: for many believers, social and economic conservatism are not competing priorities, but part of a unified moral vision.

With clarity and intellectual generosity, Professor Seat unpacks the idea of “free market family values,” showing how concepts like religious freedom, family structure, and market liberty become deeply intertwined in the lived worldview of conservative Christians. This is not a partisan argument, but an invitation to understand a powerful cultural framework on its own terms. If you are curious about the forces shaping American public life today, this lecture offers a rare chance to listen closely, think critically, and expand your perspective. Watch the recording and follow the ideas wherever they lead.

Why Watch?

Gain a deeper understanding of how religion, economics, and politics intersect in contemporary America. This lecture offers a thoughtful, research-driven perspective that challenges assumptions and invites you to see familiar debates in a new light.

About Professor Karen Seat

Karen Seat is a Distinguished Scholar and Head of the Department of Religious Studies and Classics at the University of Arizona, where she teaches and researches U.S. religious history. Her work explores the intersection of American evangelicalism, gender, and political culture—areas where belief and public life continuously shape one another. She is the coeditor of A Marginal Majority and author of “Providence Has Freed Our Hands,” and her current research examines the evolving relationship between conservative Christianity and American politics. This lecture draws from her forthcoming book, Free Market Family Values, which traces how religious belief, economic ideology, and political identity have become deeply intertwined.

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