Episode I: The Early Crusades, 1950-1968
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Post-War fundamentalism is marked by optimism, mass revival meetings, and disdain for worldly politics. But current events -- from America's growing anti-Communism to the election of Catholic John Kennedy to the Civil Rights movement -- prod evangelical Christians into the political arena. Dismayed by Supreme Court rulings banning school prayer and encouraged by the Goldwater '64 campaign, conservative Christians rise up in Anaheim, Calif., to launch a nationwide revolt against sex education. |
| PHOTO: In 1950, after Billy Graham had obtained a brief meeting with President Truman to discuss the Communist threat, the Korean conflict, and the country's spiritual health, Graham (second from right) and three associates allowed themselves to be photographed while kneeling in prayer on the White House lawn. Truman was infuriated, and it was years before Graham was able to repair this political breach. (Credit: UPI/Corbis-Bettmann) |
Episode II: The Zeal of Thy House, 1969-1974
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The symbiotic alliance between Billy Graham and Richard Nixon foreshadows the coming union of religion and politics. The marriage is consummated in Kanahwa County, West Virginia, where national conservative strategists help escalate a local textbook controversy into a major conflagration of jailings, bombings, and a miners' strike. Meanwhile, Watergate teaches Graham the perils of political entanglement. But from Berkeley's Jesus People to Kanahwa's fundamentalists, the die has been cast -- and the Religious Right is born. |
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(TOP) Approximately 20 percent of Kanawha County's 45,000 students stayed home in the Fall of 1974 after conservative Christians called for a boycott of the schools to rid them of "irreligious" and "anti-Christian" books. (Credit: (c) R. Ferrell Friend/Charleston Gazette)
(RIGHT) Richard Nixon, pictured at a prayer breakfast with his wife Pat, and Billy Graham, made conscious use of religion as a political instrument. He instructed his aides to sound out Graham for his readings of public opinion, and Graham, in turn, counseled the President on ways to enhance his appeal to conservative religious people. (Credit: Courtesy Nixon Project) |  |
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