Episode III:

We Are Family, 1974-1980

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After Vietnam and Watergate, America is looking for a Good Father, and despite media befuddlement at the "born-again" Jimmy Carter, his religious faith helps convince voters he can heal the nation. Carter's election heralds a new era of evangelical engagement in every area of modern life, from broadcasting to basketball. But modern life also means divorce, feminism, and gay rights, and at Carter's White House Conference on Families, conservative Christians choose polarization on those issues over reuniting the American family.

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(LEFT) Jimmy Carter, pictured with his wife, Rosalyn, and daughter Amy, knew how to present himself as the embodiment of bedrock values, deep concerns and honest aspirations, and knew that his own genuine religious faith was an asset. (Credit: UPI/Corbis-Bettmann)

Episode IV

Prophets and Advisors, 1979-1984

Seizing the "pro-family" agenda, New Right conservative strategists midwife a brood of new Christian political organizations, most notably Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority. These groups experience a heady overnight success, registering millions of evangelical voters and helping sweep Ronald Reagan into office. Yet once in the White House, his mainline Republican advisors actively suppress the traditional-values issues. Evangelical leaders are forced to choose between "speaking truth to power" like Biblical prophets, or "going along to get along" in the political realm.

(ABOVE RIGHT) Rev. Jerry Falwell, before founding the Moral Majority, Inc., tested the waters of politicking with his "I Love America" rallies. (Credit: UPI/Corbis-Bettmann) (LEFT) During the 1970s and into the '80s, Phyllis Schlafly became one of the most vocal and influential members of the Christian Right, vigorously opposing the Equal Rights Amendment and President Carter's Conference on Families on the grounds that they would bring forth a "gender-free society." (Credit: UPI/Corbis-Bettmann)