From religious liberty to faith in America: JFK, Mitt Romney, and the rise of the religious right

ABSTRACT

In 1960, John Kennedy, the Democratic nominee for president, appeared before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to address concerns about what the election of a Catholic would mean for Protestant America. His speech was a classic defense of the separation of church and state and the right to privacy in matters of religion. In 2007, in his first, unsuccessful run for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, Mitt Romney gave a similar speech trying to explain how his Mormon faith would inform his term in office. The speeches had similar purposes, with each candidate trying to calm fears about his faith, but the differences between them are striking and reveal much about the changing role of religion in presidential politics over those forty-seven years. The most consequential change in the intersection of American religion and politics between these two speeches was the emergence of the religious right and its place as a part of the Republican Party’s base. Where Kennedy faced a more generalized Protestant resistance to his candidacy, Romney had to deal with a conservative faction within the Republican Party that had embraced a specific policy agenda. Kennedy was thus able to appeal to broader American values such as religious liberty and church/state separation, while Romney, to win the nomination, had to support policies that weakened his appeal in the general election.

KEYWORDS:

• John Kennedy
• Mitt Romney
• religious right

Notes

¹ Randall Balmer, God in the White House: A History, New York: HarperOne, 2009, loc. 81 of 4417 [Kindle].

² Balmer, God in the White House, loc. 1880-1914 of 4417 [Kindle]. A note about terminology: “religious right,” “evangelicals,” and “conservative Christians” are used almost interchangeably to refer to white, theologically conservative Protestants. While some African-American Protestants, ethnic Catholics, and Mormons are allies politically because of similar social conservatism, white evangelicals dominate the leadership and membership of the organizations of the religious right.

³ A dated, but useful discussion of anti-Catholicism as a part of American nativism is John Higham’s Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925, Trenton, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1955. A more recent discussion is David T. Smith’s Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States, New York: Cambridge UP, 2015, loc. 5130-5792 of 11181 [Kindle].

⁴ Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology, New York: Doubleday, 1956.

⁵ Cited in the memo “The Catholic Vote in 1952 and 1956,” Spring, 1956, 5, in Papers of John F. Kennedy, Pre-Presidential Papers, Senate Files, JFKSEN-0810-008, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Cambridge, MA [pdf file in possession of the author courtesy of the library].

⁶ “The Catholic Vote,” 3-5. Sorensen’s conclusion was that regaining Catholic voters in the Northeast and Midwest would more than offset losses in the South through winning more votes in the Electoral College. According to Shaun A. Casey, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960, New York: Oxford UP, 2009, loc. 72 of 5853 [Kindle]; the author of the memo was Theodore Sorensen.

⁷ John C. Bennett, “A Roman Catholic for President?” Christianity and Crisis, 7 March 1960, 17, available at:https://archive.org/details/sim_christianity-and-crisis_1960-03-07_20_3, accessed 15 April 2024

⁸ Billy Graham, Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham, revised and updated, New York: Harper Collins, 1997, loc. 6147 of 13717 [Kindle]. Graham claimed he had no anti-Catholic prejudice but believed his long-time friend Richard Nixon would be a better President as he was more experienced than Kennedy. In fact, he wrote Kennedy directly telling him as much. In the same letter, Graham affirmed that should Kennedy win, he would “do all in my power to help unify the American people behind you.” Billy Graham to Jack Kennedy, 10 August 1960, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Pre-Presidential Papers, Senate Files, JFKSEN-0550-012.

⁹ Carol V. R. George assesses Peale’s life, career, and place in twentieth century religion in God’s Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking, second ed., New York: Oxford UP, 2019,

¹⁰ Graham, Just As I Am, loc. 8716 of 13717 [Kindle].

¹¹ The record is not clear if Graham invited Peale or if Peale came of his own accord. In God’s Salesman, loc. 4304 of 7419 [Kindle], George indicates, based on a letter from Peale to Nixon, that Peale and Graham met in late July, and this meeting may be how Peale learned of Graham’s meeting. In that letter, Peale reported that Graham agreed with Peale that “we must do all within our power to help you.” This may suggest Graham’s willingness to allow Peale to address his “informal gathering.”

¹² See the front page coverage in the New York Times: Peter Braestrup, “Protestant Unit Wary on Kennedy,” New York Times, 8 September 1960, 1, 25, available at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/09/08/105453152.html?pageNumber=1, accessed 15 April 2024; and “Protestant Groups’ Statements,” New York Times, 8 September 1960, 25, available at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/09/08/issue.html, accessed 15 April 2024. On the same day in a news conference, President Eisenhower condemned the attention given to religion in the campaign, saying the issue could be “laid on the shelf and forgotten until after the election was over.” Felix Belair, “Religion as Issue Denounced Again by White House,” New York Times, 8 September 1960, 1, available at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/09/08/105453152.html?pageNumber=1, accessed 15 April 2024.

¹³ For the ways Kennedy addressed anti-Catholic criticisms in the 1950s, see Casey, Making of a Catholic President, loc. 141-211 of 5853 [Kindle].

¹⁴ C. Stanley Lowell, “Protestants, Catholics, and Politics,” brochure, Washington, DC: Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, n.d., n.p., Baylor University, Institute of Church-State Studies Vertical File Collection, available at: http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/cs-vert/id/7646/rec/2, accessed 1 April 2024.

¹⁵ “Vote for Catholic Called Peril,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4 July 1960, 3, available at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/639692690, accessed 13 March 2024.

¹⁶ James M. Tolle, “A Roman Catholic President?” pamphlet, Denver: privately printed, n.d., n.p., Baylor University, Institute of Church-State Studies Vertical File Collection, available at: http://contentdm.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/cs-vert/id/7598/rec/, 1, accessed 17 February 2024.

¹⁷ Herbert C. Holdridge to Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, 26 May 1958, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Pre-Presidential Papers, Senate Files, JFKSEN-0550-012.

¹⁸ Public Law 414, “Immigration and Nationality Act,” 27 June 1952, 260-262, pdf available at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-66/pdf/STATUTE-66-Pg163.pdf, accessed 15 April 2024.

¹⁹ Deane A. Kemper. “‘Your Generous Invitation’: Events Preceding the Appearance of John F. Kennedy before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association,” Houston History Magazine Fall, 1981, 289, available at: https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/3.3-Your-Generous-Invitation-Events-Preceding-JFK-.pdf, accessed 12 February 2024.

²⁰ All quotations from the speech are taken from the transcript John F. Kennedy, “Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association,” at American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches, available at: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkhoustonministers.html, accessed 10 January 2010.

²¹ Quoted by Jack Bell, “Kennedy Sees Progress Made on Religious Issue,” Austin American-Statesman, 13 September 1960, 15, available at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/359238734, accessed 15 April 2024.

²² Quoted by Robert Healy, “Ministers Doubt Jack Cleared Air,” Boston Globe, 13 September 1960, 1 available at: https://www.newspapers.com/image/433481107, accessed 12 April 2024.

²³ Quoted by Bell, “Kennedy Sees Progress,” 15.

²⁴ Quoted by Bell, “Kennedy Sees Progress,” 15.

²⁵ Quoted by Bell, “Kennedy Sees Progress,” 15.

²⁶ “Presidential Vote of Catholics” [pdf], Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University, available at https://oarklibrary.com/document-viewer?materialId=2d8f077f-963b-46cc-aac9-a6618f48cf20&url=%2Fembed%3Ftype%3Dpdf%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fcurriculumoark.blob.core.windows.net%252Foark-library-container%252Fexternal-search-provider%252Fgoogle%252F11a8e82b-c526-4517-ab79-d61ae3f9b115.pdf, accessed 11 November 2023.

²⁷ “1960 Presidential General Election Results,” Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, available at: http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1960, accessed 30 November 2023.

²⁸ Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., “A Brief Analysis of the 1960 Presidential Election,” 21 November 1960, 8-9, in Richard M. Scammon Personal Papers, Elections Research Center File, 1959-1966, RMSPP-008-012. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

²⁹ Harris, “Brief Analysis,” 18-19.

³⁰ The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant, June, 2008, pdf, available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2008/06/01/u-s-religious-landscape-survey-religious-beliefs-and-practices/, accessed 18 March 2023. The data presented below were developed from this source. Note: the Pew Forum updated this report in 2015 but I have chosen to use the data from the 2008 report as it more closely represents the state of American religion at the time of Romney’s speech. Additionally, the Pew Forum analyzed the African American religious experience as a distinct category as Blacks tend to be conservative in beliefs and practices (like white evangelicals) but more liberal on some social issues (like white mainline Protestants).

³¹ Smith, Religious Persecution, loc. 1622 of 11181 [Kindle].

³² “Boggs Extermination Order 44” available at: https://archive.org/stream/BoggsExterminationOrder44/BoggsExterminationOrder44_djvu.txt, accessed 15 April 2024. See Smith’s discussion in Religious Persecution, loc. 1622-1645 of 11181 [Kindle].

³³ For a sympathetic overview of Mormon history, see Claudia Lauper Bushman and Richard Lyman Bushman, Building the Kingdom: A History of Mormons in America, New York: Oxford UP, 2001. For an outsider’s perspective, see Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: the Power and the Promise, rev. ed., New York: Harper-Collins, 2009. For an introduction to “new Mormon history,” see D. Michael Quinn, ed., The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past, Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1992.

³⁴ R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans, New York: Oxford UP, 1986, 25-47.

³⁵ Gallup, “Bias against a Mormon Presidential Candidate Same as in 1967,” available at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155273/bias-against-mormon-presidential-candidate-1967.aspx, accessed 5 April 2024 See also, Pew Research, Religion and Public Life Project, “Public Views of Presidential Politics and Mormon Faith,” available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2007/05/16/public-views-of-presidential-politics-and-mormon-faith/, accessed 5 January 2024, However, only 38 percent of respondents in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from early November 2007 believed Americans were ready to elect a Mormon as president, yet in the same poll 44 percent said Romney’s Mormonism made no difference to them and another 19 percent said they were comfortable or enthusiastic about Romney being a Mormon. Results available at: https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/wsjnbcpoll20071108.pdf, accessed 13 May 2023.

³⁶ Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster document all Mormons who ran for president from Joseph Smith in 1844 to, prospectively, Mitt Romney and John Huntsman in 2012 in their The Mormon Quest for the Presidency: From Joseph Smith to John Huntsman, expanded edition, Independence, MO: John Witmer Books, 2011.

³⁷ “Poll Puts Romney Out Front in G.O.P.,” New York Times, 20 September 1966, 27, available at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/09/20/issue.html, accessed 30 November 2023.

³⁸ Warren Weaver, “Romney Suddenly Quits; Rockefeller Reaffirms Availability to a Draft,” New York Times, 1, 22, available at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1968/02/29/issue.html, accessed 30 March 2024.

³⁹ Chris Bachelder has the most comprehensive discussion of Romney’s decline (Chris Bachelder, “Crashing the Party: The Ill-Fated 1968 Presidential Campaign of Governor George Romney,” Michigan Historical Review 2, 2007: 131-62). However, Dennis L. Lythgoe suggests that it was not Mormonism specifically that affected Romney’s campaign, but his religiosity: “Romney’s principle problem seemed to be his piety, the somewhat abstract concept that he was ‘too good to be true.’ …His habit of appearing as a ‘preachy’ candidate with a definite ‘Messiah complex’ began to damage him badly.” (“The 1968 Presidential Decline of George Romney: Mormonism or Politics?” Brigham Young University Studies 3, 1971: 219-240: 238).

⁴⁰ J. B. Haws, “When Mormonism Mattered Less in Presidential Politics: George Romney’s 1968 Window of Possibilities,” Journal of Mormon History 3, 2013, 96-130: 99.

⁴¹ For histories of its theological roots, see George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture, third ed., New York: Oxford UP, 2022, and Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism, New York: Oxford UP, 1997. Matthew Avery Sutton challenges some of the details of the Marsden/Carpenter story and reframes it with more attention to the social and political context in Matthew Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2014,

⁴² See for an extended discussion of these and other issues, Daniel K. Williams, God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right, New York: Oxford UP, 2010.

⁴³ See for examples of evangelical ambivalence regarding abortion Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2021), loc. 389-447 of 1168 [Kindle].

⁴⁴ Quoted in Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics, New York: Norton, 1992, 132. See as well Joseph Crespino, “Civil Rights and the Religious Right,” in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, eds Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2008, loc. 1455-1707, of 7215 [Kindle]; and Robert Freedman, “The Religious Right and the Carter Administration,” The Historical Journal 1, 2005: 231-60.

⁴⁵ One the best discussions of this transformation of southern politics is Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2002.

⁴⁶ Darren Dochuk emphasizes the role the southern evangelical diaspora played in “the southernization of American religion and politics” (Darren Dochuk, “Evangelicalism Becomes Southern, Politics Becomes Evangelical: From FDR to Ronald Reagan,” in Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the Present, second ed., eds Mark A. Noll and Luke E. Harlow, New York: Oxford UP, 2007, 297-325: 300). Here, the argument concerns the transformation within the South that brought Southerners into the Republican Party and aligned southern Protestant traditions with national trends. The issue of tax exemption for segregated religious schools reinforced those tendencies moving southern evangelicals into the Republican Party as did other racist dog whistles such as “forced busing” and “law and order.” Where these latter issues lacked a clear religious aspect, the denial of tax exemption to evangelical schools married religion and race. See the way Dan T. Carter contextualizes this issue as a part of the “politics of symbols” in Dan T. Carter From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994, Baton Rouge, LA: U. of Louisiana P., 1996, Chapter 3 [Kindle].

⁴⁷ For a political scientist’s view on the centrality of abortion to the religious right and how it led from an emphasis on framing its advocacy in terms of moral/religious values to an assertion of constitutional rights, see Andrew R. Lewis, The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics: How Abortion Transformed the Culture Wars, New York: Cambridge UP, 2017. Crucial to the southern evangelical realignment was the coup engineered by conservative Southern Baptists that wrested control of the denomination from the traditionalists and drew it into an alliance with the religious right (See Barry Hankins, Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture, Tuscaloosa, AL: U. of Alabama Pr., 2003).

⁴⁸ Quoted in Black and Black, Rise, 215. For biographical details on Tompkins, see the write-up available at: https://www.ttbgovaffairs.com/who-we-are, accessed 17 April 2024.

⁴⁹ Quoted in Coppins, Romney, loc. 1332 of 7153 [Kindle]. Stevens made this remark before the 2012 campaign but it would have been equally true in 2008.

⁵⁰ R. Albert Mohler, “Mormonism Is a Sincerely False Gospel,” Beliefnet, available at: http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/blogalogue/2007/07/mormonism-is-a-sincerely-false.html, accessed 10 March 2024. Jan Shipps offers a more complicated explanation of the “Christian-ness” of Mormonism: that in the same way early Christianity emerged from Judaism, so Mormonism began as a Christian sect but quickly separated itself from Christian traditions (see Jan Shipps, Mormonism: the Story of a New Religious Tradition, Champaign-Urbana, IL: Illini Books, 1987, ix-x. For a Mormon rebuttal, see Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians?, Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book Co., 1991.

⁵¹ Mohler, “Mormonism.”

⁵² “Panel asks: Can Christians vote for a Mormon?” The Courier, 12 September 2012, available at: http://baptistcourier.com/2012/09/panel-asks-can-christians-vote-for-a-mormon/, accessed 12 February 2024.

⁵³ McKay Coppins, Romney: A Reckoning, New York: Scribner, 2023, loc. 1070-99 of 7153 [Kindle].

⁵⁴ See Pew Forum, Religious Landscape Survey, 88, 90, 92.

⁵⁵ Coppins, Romney, loc. 1222, 1223 of 7153 [Kindle].

⁵⁶ Jacob Weisberg, “Romney’s Religion: a Mormon President. No Way,” Slate, 20 December 2006, available at: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/12/a-mormon-president-no-way.html, accessed 22 January 2024.

⁵⁷ David Linker, “The Big Test,” The New Republic, 15 January 2007, available at: https://newrepublic.com/article/63193/the-big-test, accessed 3 March 2024.

⁵⁸ All quotations from the speech are taken from the transcript at National Public Radio, “Transcript: Mitt Romney’s Faith Speech,” 6 December 2007, available at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16969460, accessed 12 November 2023.

⁵⁹ John Sullivan and Michael Luo, “Mitt Romney to Withdraw from Presidential Conflict,” New York Times, 7 February 2008, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/world/americas/07iht-07romney.9839885.html, accessed 3 April 2024. Jayson K. Jones and Ana C. Rosado, “Romney Endorses McCain,” New York Times, available at: https://archive.nytimes.com/thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/romney-to-endorse-mccain/, accessed 7 February 2024.

⁶⁰ See, for example, Ravelle Mohammed, “Joel Osteen: Mitt Romney Is a ‘Believer in Christ Like Me,’” The Christian Post, 16 January 2012, available at: http://www.christianpost.com/news/joel-osteen-mitt-romney-is-a-believer-in-christ-like-me-67297/, accessed 15 April 2024; and Jim Denison, “Should Christians Vote for a Mormon?” The Christian Post, 12 January 2012, available at: http://www.christianpost.com/news/should-christians-vote-for-a-mormon-66994/, accessed 30 January 2024.

⁶¹ In Iowa, Romney and Santorum tied, but Santorum won the support of a third of evangelicals to Romney’s 14 percent. See Pew Research, Religion and Public Life Project, “Religion and the 2012 Iowa Republican Caucuses,” 4 January 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/01/04/religion-and-the-2012-iowa-republican-caucuses/ accessed 30 January 2024; “Religion and the 2012 New Hampshire Republican Primary,” 11 January 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/01/11/religion-and-the-2012-new-hampshire-republican-primary/ accessed 30 January 2024; “Religion and the 2012 South Carolina Republican Primary,” 23 January 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/01/23/religion-and-the-2012-south-carolina-republican-primary/ accessed 30 January 2024; “Religion and the 2012 Florida Republican Primary,” 1 February 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/02/01/religion-and-the-2012-florida-republican-primary/ accessed 30 January 2024; “Religion and the 2012 Nevada Republican Caucuses,” 6 February 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/02/06/religion-and-the-2012-nevada-republican-caucuses/ accessed 15 January 2024; “Religion and the 2012 Republican Primaries: Arizona and Michigan,” 29 February 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/02/29/religion-and-the-2012-republican-primaries-arizona-and-michigan/ accessed 15 January 2024; “Religion and the 2012 Republican Primaries: Alabama and Mississippi,” available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/03/14/religion-and-the-2012-republican-primaries-alabama-and-mississippi/ accessed 8 March 2024; “Religion and the 2012 Illinois Republican Primary,” 21 March 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/03/21/religion-and-the-2012-illinois-republican-primary/ accessed 15 March 2024; “Religion and the 2012 Louisiana Republican Primary,” 26 March 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/03/26/religion-and-the-2012-louisiana-republican-primary/ accessed 15 March 2024; “Religion and the 2012 Republican Primaries: Maryland and Wisconsin,” 4 April 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/04/04/religion-and-the-2012-republican-primaries-maryland-and-wisconsin/, accessed 30 January 2024.

⁶² Morgan Little, “Transcript: Read Mitt Romney’s Full Address to Liberty University,” Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2012, available at: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2012-may-13-la-pn-read-mitt-romneys-full-address-to-liberty-university-20120513-story.html, accessed 7 February 2024.

⁶³ “Romney Announced as Commencement Speaker,” Liberty Champion, 21 April 2012, available at: https://www.liberty.edu/champion/2012/04/romney-announced-as-commencement-speaker/, accessed 3 March 2024. This publication is the newspaper of the University’s students, so the likelihood is that these comments came from students.

⁶⁴ “Mitt Romney to Address Graduates,” Liberty Champion, 24 April 2012, available at:https://www.liberty.edu/champion/2012/04/mitt-romney-to-address-graduates/, accessed 30 January 2024.

⁶⁵ Pew Research, Religion and Public Life Project, “How the Faithful Voted: 2012 Preliminary Analysis,” 7 November 2012, available at: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/, accessed 30 January 2024.

66 Quoted in Jodi Kantor, “Convention Voices Hope to Add Texture to Romney’s Faith,” New York Times, 29 August 2012, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/us/politics/romneys-mormon-faith-in-convention-spotlight.html?searchResultPosition=52, accessed 9 January 2024.

⁶⁷ Pew Research, “How the Faithful Voted.” This discussion is not to suggest that religious affiliation determined Romney’s loss; many factors contributed to it as detailed in the Republican post-mortem on the 2012 campaign. See Republican National Committee, Growth & Opportunity Project (2013), pdf, available at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/624293-republican-national-committees-growth-and, accessed 30 January 2024. It is interesting to note that this report does not mention religion.

⁶⁸ Martin J. Medhurst, “Mitt Romney, ‘Faith in America,’ and the Dance of Religion and Politics in American Culture,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 2, 2009: 195-221.

⁶⁹ Medhurst, “Mitt Romney,” 211.

⁷⁰ In 2012, they comprised 48 percent of Republican primary voters and were a powerful voice in shaping the Republican agenda. NBC News Exit Poll Desk, “NBC News Exit Poll Results: Lacking a Clear Champion in 2016, White Evangelicals Voted for Trump,” 11 May 2016, available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/nbc-news-exit-poll-results-lacking-clear-champion-2016-white-n571786, accessed 12 December 2023.

⁷¹ The reasons for evangelical support for Trump are complex. One explanation is that they were not voting their religion but their class. See, for example, Myriam Renaud, “Myths Debunked: Why Did White Evangelical Christians Vote for Trump?” Sightings, 19 January 2017, available at: https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/myths-debunked-why-did-white-evangelical-christians-vote-trump, accessed 12 December 2023. Alternatively, Lewis argues that “evangelicals’ support for Donald Trump was not that he would renew Christian majoritarian politics, but rather vouchsafe religious rights, both pro-life rights and religious freedom rights.” (Lewis, Rights Turn, 6). Some evangelicals rationalized their support by calling Trump a modern equivalent of “King Cyrus,” an unbeliever through whom God nonetheless accomplishes his purpose. Rebecca Barrett-Fox argues that this frame enabled evangelicals to see Trump as the vehicle for reestablishing Christian domination of the United States (see Rebecca Barrett-Fox “A King Cyrus President: How Donald Trump’s Presidency Reasserts Conservative Christians’ Right to Hegemony,” Humanity & Society 4, 2018: 502-22).

⁷² A prescient, but now somewhat dated journalistic discussion is Michelle Goldberg’s Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, New York: Norton, 2006. Kristin Kobes Du Mez updates and deepens Goldberg’s reportage to detail how “the Christian gospel has become inextricably linked to a staunch commitment to patriarchal authority, gender difference, and Christian nationalism, and all of these are intertwined with white racial identity” (Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted America and Fractured a Nation, New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 2020, loc. 147 of 7340 [Kindle]).