Millennial Dreams and Apocalyptic Nightmares : The Cold War Origins of Political Evangelicalism

The Religious Right came to prominence in the early 1980s, but it was born during the early Cold War. Evangelical leaders like Billy Graham, driven by a fierce opposition to communism, led evangelicals out of the political wilderness they'd inhabited since the Scopes trial and into a much more active engagement with the important issues of the day. How did the conservative evangelical culture move into the political mainstream? Angela Lahr seeks to answer this important question. She shows how evangelicals, who had felt marginalized by American culture, drew upon their eschatological belief in the Second Coming of Christ and a subsequent glorious millennium to find common cause with more mainstream Americans who also feared a a 'soon-coming end,' albeit from nuclear war. In the early postwar climate of nuclear fear and anticommunism, the apocalyptic eschatology of premillennial dispensationalism embraced by many evangelicals meshed very well with the ''secular apocalyptic'' mood of a society equally terrified of the Bomb and of communism. She argues that the development of the bomb, the creation of the state of Israel, and the Cuban Missile Crisis combined with evangelical end-times theology to shape conservative evangelical political identity and to influence secular views. Millennial beliefs influenced evangelical interpretation of these events, repeatedly energized evangelical efforts, and helped evangelicals view themselves and be viewed by others as a vital and legitimate segment of American culture, even when it raised its voice in sharp criticism of aspects of that culture. Conservative Protestants were able to take advantage of this situation to carve out a new space for their subculture within the national arena. The greater legitimacy that evangelicals gained in the early Cold War provided the foundation of a power-base in the national political culture that the religious right would draw on in the late seventies and early eighties. The result, she demonstrates, was the alliance of religious and political conservatives that holds power today.

The Religious Right came to prominence in the early 1980s, but it was born during the early Cold War. Evangelical leaders like Billy Graham, driven by a fierce opposition to communism, led evangelicals out of the political wilderness they'd inhabited since the Scopes trial and into a much more active engagement with the important issues of the day. How did the conservative evangelical culture move into the political mainstream? Angela Lahr seeks to answer this important question. She shows how evangelicals, who had felt marginalized by American culture, drew upon their eschatological belief in the Second Coming of Christ and a subsequent glorious millennium to find common cause with more mainstream Americans who also feared a a 'soon-coming end,' albeit from nuclear war.

In the early postwar climate of nuclear fear and anticommunism, the apocalyptic eschatology of premillennial dispensationalism embraced by many evangelicals meshed very well with the secular apocalyptic mood of a society equally terrified of the Bomb and of communism. She argues that the development of the bomb, the creation of the state of Israel, and the Cuban Missile Crisis combined with evangelical end-times theology to shape conservative evangelical political identity and to influence secular views. Millennial beliefs influenced evangelical interpretation of these events, repeatedly energized evangelical efforts, and helped evangelicals view themselves and be viewed by others as a vital and legitimate segment of American culture, even when it raised its voice in sharp criticism of aspects of that culture. Conservative Protestants were able to take advantage of this situation to carve out a new space for their subculture within the national arena. The greater legitimacy that evangelicals gained in the early Cold War provided the foundation of a power-base in the national political culture that the religious right would draw on in the late seventies and early eighties. The result, she demonstrates, was the alliance of religious and political conservatives that holds power today.

## Abstract Conservative evangelicals in the early Cold War were the forbearers of the New Christian Right of the 1980s. In the postwar United States, the evangelical subculture, which had become marginalized after the turn of the 20th century, mixed its own eschatology with the apocalyptic context of the beginning of the Cold War and the nuclear age. The atomic bomb, the new Israeli state, and the Cuban Missile Crisis all confirmed for evangelicals their belief that biblical prophecy about the end‐times was being fulfilled. Evangelicals who utilized religious practices like prayer and missions work in light of these events simultaneously responded politically within a Cold War context. Furthermore, Cold War secular apocalypticism helped to justify evangelical prophecy. These developments, alongside conservative evangelicalism's embrace of anticommunism, created a less‐marginalized subculture that fit comfortably into a dominant American political culture defined in dichotomous Cold War terms. Ironically, it was this earlier integration into the mainstream that paved the way for the rise of the religious right in the last decade of the Cold War. While the New Christian Right stormed onto the political scene, they did so by separating themselves from secular America. At the same time, a burgeoning evangelical left was advocating a different prophetic message—a call for social justice. Contents......Page 10 Abbreviations......Page 12 Introduction......Page 16 1. "Bomb"arding Evangelicals......Page 38 2. Praying in the End......Page 62 3. Putting the Trumpet to Their Lips......Page 88 4. The Cuban Climax......Page 114 5. Next Year in Jerusalem?......Page 146 6. A Different Kind of Prophet......Page 182 Conclusion......Page 212 Notes......Page 218 Select Bibliography......Page 254 A......Page 280 B......Page 281 C......Page 282 D......Page 283 F......Page 284 H......Page 285 K......Page 286 M......Page 287 N......Page 288 P......Page 289 R......Page 290 S......Page 291 W......Page 293 Z......Page 294 An examination of the Americanization of Cold War evangelicalism, it argues that developments like the prospect of nuclear warfare and the creation of the state of Israel that appeared to be fulfilment of biblical prophecy accompanied by secular apocalypticism led to the evangelical subculture's expansion with the rise of the New Christian Right. This title examines the Americanization of Cold War evangelicalism and argues that these developments led up to the evangelical subculture's expansion with the rise of the New Christian Right.