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“Worse than cancer and worse than snakes”: Jimmy Carter’s Southern Baptist Problem and the 1980 Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2014

Neil J. Young
Neil J. Young*
Affiliation:
New York, NY
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 2014 , pp. 479 - 508
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Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

NOTES

1. Questionnaire, attached to Letter, Rev. Pat Andrews to Mr. Carter, 10/2/80, file: “Moral Majority,” Name File, Jimmy Carter Library. Hereafter Carter.

2. Letter, Bob Maddox to Reverend Pat Andrews, 10/27/80, file: “Moral Majority,” Name File, Carter.

3. Keller, Bill, “Christian Vote Ratings: Study in Absolutes,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 6 September 1980Google Scholar, in Christian Life Commission Resource Files, 1955–90, AR 138-2, box 61, folder 3, Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives. Hereafter SBHLA.

4. Buursma, Bruce, “Moral Majority: Crusade Has Just Begun,” Chicago Tribune, 6 November 1980Google Scholar; Glenn Frankel and Karlyn Barker, “Virginia Republicans Now More Eager For ’81 Election,” Washington Post, 6 November 1980.

5. Warner, Edwin, “New Resolve by the New Right,” Time, 8 December 1980, 24.Google Scholar

6. See also Buursma, “Moral Majority”; Frankel and Barker, “Virginia Republicans Now More Eager For ’81 Election”; Herbers, John, “Once-Democratic South: An Era Ends,” New York Times, 6 November 1980Google Scholar; and Warner, “New Resolve by the New Right.”

7. Johnson, Stephen D. and Tamney, Joseph B., “The Christian Right and the 1980 Presidential Election,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 21, no. 2 (June 1982)Google Scholar: 128. See also Abramson, Paul R., Aldrich, John H., and Rohde, David W., eds., Change and Continuity in the 1980 Elections (Washington, D.C., 1982), 101Google Scholar; Himmelstein, Jerome L. and McRae, James A. Jr., “Social Conservatism, New Republicans, and the 1980 Election,” Public Opinion Quarterly 48, no. 3 (Autumn 1984): 592–605Google Scholar; Lipset, Seymour Martin and Raab, Earl, “The Election and the Evangelicals,” Commentary, March 1981, 25–31.Google Scholar

8. Brudney, Jeffrey L. and Copeland, Gary W., “Evangelicals as a Political Force: Reagan and the 1980 Religious Vote,” Social Science Quarterly 65, no. 4 (December 1984)Google Scholar: 1076. It is difficult to get at a precise estimate for the number of evangelicals who voted for Ronald Reagan, as various studies employ different qualifications to identify evangelical voters. Some intend “evangelicals” to include fundamentalists, while others differentiate the two. The political scientist Andrew Busch found that Reagan outpolled Carter by a measure of 2-to-1 among “white fundamentalist or evangelical Christians.” Andrew E. Busch, Reagan’s Victory: The Presidential Election of 1980 and the Rise of the Right (Lawrence, Kans., 2005), 127. The sociologist James Davison Hunter, however, claims that only 61 percent of white evangelicals voted for Reagan. James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York, 1991), 280. Though he does not cite his source, Hunter is likely using the results of the New York Times/CBS News poll conducted of more than twelve thousand voters. Of this group, 17 percent identified themselves as “born-again white Protestants,” and 61 percent of those said they had voted for Reagan. Poll cited in Dionne, E. J. Jr., Why Americans Hate Politics (New York, 1991), 234.Google Scholar One study found that the stronger one’s fundamentalist beliefs, the more likely one picked Reagan, with those in the highest category of fundamentalism giving him 85 percent of their votes. Miller, Arthur H. and Wattenberg, Martin P., “Politics from the Pulpit: Religiosity and the 1980 Election,” Public Opinion Quarterly 48, no. 1 (Spring 1984): 312–13.Google Scholar

For other works that argue that the Religious Right was an important factor in the 1980 presidential election, see Bruce, Steve, The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right: Conservative Protestant Politics in America, 1978–1988 (Oxford, 1988), 91–103Google Scholar; Phillips, Kevin P., Post-Conservative America: People, Politics, and Ideology in a Time of Crisis (New York, 1982): 189–92Google Scholar; Simpson, John H., “Social-Moral Issues and Recent Presidential Elections,” Review of Religious Research 2, no. 2 (December 1985): 115–23Google Scholar; and Smidt, Corwin, “‘Born Again’ Politics: The Political Attitudes and Behavior of Evangelical Christians in the South and Non-South,” in Religion and Politics in the South: Mass and Elite Perspectives, eds. Baker, Tod, Steed, Robert, and Moreland, Larry (New York, 1983), 27–56.Google Scholar

9. Critchlow, Donald T., The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History (Cambridge, Mass., 2007), 174–77Google Scholar; Heineman, Kenneth J., God Is a Conservative: Religion, Politics, and Morality in Contemporary America (New York, 1998), 93–123Google Scholar; Martin, William, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York, 1996), 191–220Google Scholar; and Williams, Daniel K., God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right (New York, 2010), 188–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Lassiter, Matthew D., “Inventing Family Values,” in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, eds. Schulman, Bruce and Zelizer, Julian (Cambridge, Mass., 2008), 13–28.Google Scholar

10. See Flint, Andrew R. and Porter, Joy, “Jimmy Carter: The Re-emergence of Faith-Based Politics and the Abortion Rights Issue,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 1 (March 2005): 28–50Google Scholar; and Freedman, Robert, “The Religious Right and the Carter Administration,” Historical Journal 48, no. 1 (March 2005): 231–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The historian J. Brooks Flippen’s recent book provides a forceful case for centralizing Carter in the story of the Religious Right. Still, his work reaffirms a largely political narrative of Christian conservatism, seeing Carter’s struggles with this constituency as a function of his political pivoting between secular liberals and religious conservatives. Flippen credits the political organizing of Christian conservatives by New Right and Christian Right leaders that culminated with the election of Reagan, but he largely overlooks the theological basis of the Religious Right and how doctrinal controversies and denominational realignment, particularly within the context of the Southern Baptist Convention, shaped religious conservatives’ rejection of Carter. Flippen, J. Brooks, Jimmy Carter, the Politics of Family, and the Rise of the Religious Right (Athens, 2011).Google Scholar The political scientist Oran P. Smith sees Carter’s loss in the context of the Southern Baptist Convention’s conservative realignment in 1979, but merely notes that Carter, like his fellow moderate Baptists in the convention, lay on the losing end of both a religious realignment in his denomination and a political realignment in the nation. Smith, Oran P., The Rise of Baptist Republicanism (New York, 1997), 94–97.Google Scholar

11. Ruth Murray Brown, For a “Christian America”: A History of the Religious Right (Amherst, 2002); Dochuk, Darren, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York, 2011)Google Scholar; Hill, Samuel S. and Owen, Dennis E., The New Religious Political Right in America (Nashville, 1982)Google Scholar; Jorstad, Erling, The New Christian Right, 1981–1988: Prospects for the Post-Reagan Decade (Lewiston, N.Y., 1987)Google Scholar; Lambert, Frank, Religion in American Politics: A Short History (Princeton, 2008), 184–217Google Scholar; Martin, With God on Our Side; Steven P. Miller, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South (Philadelphia, 2009); Williams, God’s Own Party; Williams, Daniel K., “Jerry Falwell’s Sunbelt Politics: The Regional Origins of the Moral Majority,” Journal of Policy History 22, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 125–47Google Scholar; Wills, Garry, Under God: Religion and American Politics (New York, 1990).Google Scholar See also Bruce, Steve, The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right: Conservative Protestant Politics in America, 1978–1988 (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar; Lienesch, Michael, Redeeming Politics: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right (Chapel Hill, 1993)Google Scholar; David G. Bromley and Anson Shupe, eds., New Christian Politics (Macon, Ga., 1984); Liebman, Robert C. and Wuthnow, Robert, eds., The New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legitimation (New York, 1983)Google Scholar; Duane Murray Oldfield, The Right and the Righteous: The Christian Right Confronts the Republican Party (Lanham, Md., 1996); and Clyde Wilcox, God’s Warriors: The Christian Right in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore, 1992).

12. Ammerman, Nancy, Baptist Battles: Social Change and Religious Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention (New Brunswick, 1990)Google Scholar; Rosenberg, Ellen M., The Southern Baptists: A Subculture in Transition (Knoxville, 1989), 184–94Google Scholar; and Walter B. Shurden and Randy Shepley, Going for the Jugular: A Documentary History of the SBC Holy War (Macon, Ga., 1996). See also Nancy Ammerman, ed., Southern Baptists Observed: Multiple Perspectives on a Changing Denomination (Knoxville, 1993); Joseph Barnhart, The Southern Baptist Holy War (Austin, 1986); Arthur Emery Farnsley III, Southern Baptist Politics: Authority and Power in the Restructuring of an American Denomination (University Park, Pa., 1994); James Hefley, The Truth in Crisis: The Controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention (Dallas, 1986); Bill J. Leonard, God’s Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1990).

Oran P. Smith does attribute the fundamentalist resurgence in the SBC to the rise of what he calls “Baptist Republicanism,” but he sees that political development within a larger history, dating back to the 1920s, of the cultural, social, and political developments within both the denomination and the American South. See Smith, The Rise of Baptist Republicanism, 48–67 and passim.

13. On the 1980 election and Reagan’s place in modern conservatism, see Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964–1980 (Roseville, Calif., 2001), and The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980–1989 (New York, 2009); Gil Troy, Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s (Princeton, 2005); Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008 (New York, 2008). On the rise of modern conservatism, see Brennan, Mary C., Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (Chapel Hill, 1995)Google Scholar; Carter, Dan T., The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York, 1995)Google Scholar; Critchlow, The Conservative Ascendancy; Himmelstein, Jerome L., To the Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism (Berkeley, 1990)Google Scholar; Hodgson, Godfrey, The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America (Boston, 1996)Google Scholar; Kruse, Kevin M., White Flight: Atlanta and the Rise of Modern American Conservatism (Princeton, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nash, George H., The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Phillips-Fein, Kim, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York, 2009)Google Scholar; McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar; Perlstein, Rick, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York, 2001)Google Scholar; Jonathan M. Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (New York, 2001). For two recent reviews of the literature of American conservatism, see Kim Phillips-Fein, “Conservatism: A State of the Field,” Journal of American History 98, no. 3 (December 2011): 723–43; and Zelizer, Julian E., “Rethinking the History of American Conservatism,” Reviews in American History 38, no. 2 (June 2010): 367–92.Google Scholar

14. Gary M. Fink and Hugh Davis Graham, eds., The Carter Presidency: Policy Choices in the Post–New Deal Era (Lawrence, Kans., 1998); Frye Gaillard, The Unfinished Presidency: Essays on Jimmy Carter (Wingate, N.C., 1986); Alonzo L. Hambly, Liberalism and Its Challengers: From FDR to Reagan (New York, 1985); William E. Leuchtenburg, In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to George W. Bush (Ithaca, 2001); Ribuffo, Leo P., “Jimmy Carter and the Ironies of American Liberalism,” Gettysburg Review 1 (Autumn 1988): 739–49.Google Scholar On the decline of the New Deal order and American liberalism, see Cowie, Jefferson and Salvatore, Nick, “The Long Exception: Rethinking the Place of the New Deal in American History,” International Labor and Working-Class History 74 (Fall 2008): 3–32Google Scholar; Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930–1980 (Princeton, 1989); Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, 1996); and Jonathan Rieder, Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism (Cambridge, Mass., 1985).

15. Plowman, Edward E., “Southern Baptists: Platform for Presidents,” Christianity Today, 16 July 1976, 49.Google Scholar

16. Kenneth L. Woodward, “Born Again!” Newsweek, 25 October 1976, 68.

17. Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids, 1976).

18. “Bible Battles,” Time, 10 May 1976, 57.

19. Rue Steele, Francis, “Inerrancy Is Indispensable,” Christianity Today, 9 April 1976, 35.Google Scholar

20. This section draws from Ammerman, Baptist Battles; Rosenberg, The Southern Baptists, 184–94; and Going for the Jugular, ed. Shurden and Shepley.

21. Adrian Rogers, “The Great Deceiver,” in Going for the Jugular, ed. Shurden and Shepley, 18.

22. Shurden and Shepley, Going for the Jugular, 9.

23. Ibid., 22.

24. James Robison, “Satan’s Subtle Attacks,” in Going for the Jugular, ed. Shurden and Shepley, 25.

25. Ibid., 31.

26. Ibid., 37.

27. Ibid., 29.

28. “Conservative Wins Top Baptist Post,” Washington Post, 13 June 1979.

29. Smith, The Rise of Baptist Republicanism, 51.

30. Quoted in Gary Scott Smith, Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush (New York, 2006), 295. For a highly sympathetic “spiritual biography” of Carter, see Dan Arial and Cheryl Heckler-Feltz, The Carpenter’s Apprentice: The Spiritual Biography of Jimmy Carter (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1996).

31. Myra McPherson, “Evangelicals Seen Cooling on Carter,” Washington Post, 27 September 1976.

32. “Carter Vatican Stance Invites Baptist Wrath,” Baptist Standard, 15 September 1976, in folder: “ACCL Political File: 76 Presidential Campaign—Ford Campaign (4),” box 45, American Citizens Concerned for Life, Inc. Records, Gerald R. Ford Library. Hereafter Ford. See also “Carter Wouldn’t Oppose Vatican Ambassador,” Baptist Standard, 8 September 1976, in same folder.

33. McPherson, “Evangelicals Seen Cooling on Carter.”

34. Kaiser, Robert G., “Remarks on Sexuality Draw Mixed Response,” Washington Post, 21 September 1976.Google Scholar

35. McPherson, Myra, “Remarks in Playboy Draw Pulpit Attack,” Washington Post, 27 September 1976.Google Scholar

36. Satchell, Michael, “‘Barnyard Language’ Denounced,” Washington Star, 21 September 1976.Google Scholar

37. Photograph, in folder: “ACCL Political File: 76 Presidential Campaign—Carter (2),” box 44, American Citizens Concerned for Life, Inc. Records, Ford.

38. Jules Witcover, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–1976 (New York, 1977), 567.

39. President Ford Committee Newsletter, “Southern Baptist Leader Endorses President,” 10/11/76, folder: “ACCL Political File: 76 Presidential Campaign—Religious,” box 44, American Citizens Concerned for Life, Inc. Records, Ford.

40. Most estimates place Southern Baptist support for Carter in 1976 in the high 50 percentages. One estimated 56 percent of Southern Baptists voted for Carter: Warner, “New Resolve by the New Right.” ABC/Louis Harris pegged Carter’s win among Baptists at 57 percent, Albert J. Menendez, Religion at the Polls (Philadelphia, 1977), 198.

41. Menendez, Religion at the Polls, 198–99.

42. Action Line: Christian Action Council Newsletter, 12 September 1980, Wilcox Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas. Hereafter Wilcox Collection.

43. Flint and Porter, “Jimmy Carter,” 31.

44. For Carter campaign concerns about evangelical voters, see Memo, Lynn Darden to Chuck Parrish and Atlanta, “Ecumenical Movement (Relationship of Carter to Protestants-Baptists Types),” 9/15/76, file: “Protestants [3],” box 280; Letter, B. Stuart Hoarn to Mr. Carlin, 9/15/76, file: “Protestants [3],” box 280; Memo, John Carlin to Landon Butler, “Growing Baptist ‘Evangelical’ Problem,” 9/1/6/76, file: “Protestants [3],” box 280; and Phil Strickland to Jimmy Carter and Carter Campaign Personnel, “Support from Southern Baptists and other segments of the Religious Community,” undated, file: “Protestants [2],” box 280, all in Jimmy Carter Pre-Presidential 1976 Campaign, Carter.

45. In the 1970s, several Protestant denominations split over disputes about doctrinal questions, liturgical practices, and other issues, like the ordination of women. These splits were institutional responses to tensions within the denominations between conservative evangelical and moderate factions that separated those forces for good. For a history of the schisms in the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and the Episcopal Church during the 1970s, see Bryan V. Hillis, Can Two Walk Together Unless They Be Agreed? American Religious Schisms in the 1970s (Brooklyn, 1991). In the PCUS and the Episcopal Church, the conservative factions broke off to form their own new denominations; whereas, in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the moderate wing left the conservative parent.

46. Memo, Stu Eizenstat to Governor Carter, 5/3/76, “Religion, 2/75–6/76,” box 27, Jimmy Carter Pre-Presidential 1976 Campaign, Carter.

47. Letter, Douglas Brewer to The Director, Christian Life Commission, 10/20/77, Christian Life Commission Resource Files, 1955–90, AR 138-2, box 48, folder 15, SBHLA.

48. Letter, Mrs. M. E. Robinson to unnamed, undated, in Christian Life Commission Resource Files, 1955–90, AR 138–2, box 48, folder 15, SBHLA. Underlining in the original.

49. “Anita Bryant Scores White House Talk with Homosexuals,” New York Times, 28 March 1977.

50. The Voice of Florida Newsletter, September 1977, Voice of Florida Collection, Wilcox Collection.

51. Kelly, Harry, “Carter Risks Ire of Gay Foes,” Chicago Tribune, 4 November 1978.Google Scholar

52. Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt, 341.

53. Chandler, Russell and Dart, John, “Many Church Leaders Oppose Prop. 6,” Los Angeles Times, 3 November 1978.Google Scholar

54. Jeffrey Perlman, “‘Battle Is Not Over,’ Briggs Vows to Prop. 6 Supporters,” Los Angeles Times, 9 November 1978.

55. Letter, Robert D. Hughes to Mr. Jimmy Carter, 12/7/78, file: “Southern Baptist Convention,” Name File, Carter. At the same time, the convention also passed a resolution opposing “any law that would make homosexuals a legal minority under the Fair Employment Act of California.” See “State’s Southern Baptists Settle Baptism and Communion Issues,” Los Angeles Times, 18 November 1978.

56. Letter, William R. Hann to The Honorable Jimmy Carter, 11/7/78, file: “Southern Baptist Convention,” Name File, Carter.

57. For the full text of the Democratic Party Platform of 1980, see http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29607.

58. Letter, Kenneth Bowden to Dr. Robert L. Maddox, 8/21/80, file: “Gay Issues,” box 8, Office of Public Liaison, Bob Maddox, Carter.

59. Letter, Ralph E. Lewis to Dr. Robert L. Maddox, n.d., file: “Gay Issues,” box 105, Office of Ann Wexler, Special Assistant to the President, Robert L. Maddox’s Religious Liaison Files, Carter. See other correspondence in the same folder. I am grateful to Kyle Goyette for sharing these documents with me.

60. On Weddington, see her autobiography, Sarah Weddington, A Question of Choice (New York, 1992).

61. Action Line: Christian Action Council Newsletter, 10 October 1980, Wilcox Collection.

62. Memo, Hugh Carter to the President, 11/3/78, file: “11/8/78 [1],” box 108, Office of Staff Secretary, Presidential Handwriting File, Carter.

63. “Resolution on Abortion,” June 1971, http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=13.

64. Cynthia Gorney, Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of the Abortion Wars (New York, 1998), 188.

65. “Abortion Newsletter,” Christian Faith in Action, July 1973 in Christian Life Commission Resource Files, 1955–90, AR 138-2, box 92, folder 11, SBHLA.

66. “Resolution on Abortion and Sanctity of Human Life,” June 1974, http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=14.

67. Letter, Carl E. Bates to The Reverend Ed Gardner, 3/21/72, Carl Bates Papers, AR 298, folder 7, SBHLA. See also other letters in same folder from Baptist pastors and congregants who denounced the SBC’s supportive position on abortion reform.

68. For examples of Southern Baptist moderation on abortion, including arguments that the Bible did not specify when life began or clearly forbid the practice, see Lester, Andrew D., “The Abortion Dilemma,” Review & Expositor 68, no. 2 (Spring 1971): 227–44Google Scholar; and “Abortion Newsletter,” Christian Faith in Action, July 1973.

69. http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=443.

70. Martin, Dan, “SBC Continues March Toward Theological Right,” Illinois Baptist, 18 June 1980.Google Scholar

71. http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=19. See also James L. Franklin, “Southern Baptist Abortion Stance Sends Shock Waves,” Dallas Herald, 12 June 1980, in Christian Life Commission Resource Files, 1955–90, AR 138-2, box 79, folder 4, SBHLA.

72. http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=1091.

73. Marse Grant, J., “SBC Didn’t Act on ERA,” Biblical Recorder, 19 November 1977.Google Scholar

74. For these resolutions, see http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/AMResSearchYear.asp?SearchBy=Year&frmData=1980.

75. Hunter, Culture Wars, 178–80.

76. “Resolution on the White House Conference on the Family,” http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/amResolution.asp?ID=530.

77. On Reagan’s 1976 race for the GOP nomination, see Craig Shirley, Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All (Nashville, 2005). Notably, Shirley’s book makes no mention of evangelicals.

78. Martin, With God on Our Side, 205–6.

79. Ibid., 206–7.

80. Letter, Bob Maddox to President Jimmy Carter, 1 September 1978, file: “Religious Matters 20 January 1977–32 December 1978,” box RM-1, White House Central File, Carter. For Carter’s rejection of Maddox’s 1978 offer, see Handwriting on Memo, Susan to Mr. President, 23 September 78, file: “Religious Matters 1/20/77–1/20/81,” box RM-1, White House Central File, Carter.

81. Freedman, “The Religious Right and the Carter Administration,” 246.

82. Memo, Bob Maddox to Phil Wise and Anne Wexler, “Meeting with Ad Hoc Group of Conservative Religious Leaders,” 8/28/79, file: “Religious Matters 1/20/77–1/20/81,” box RM-1, White House Central File, Carter.

83. Martin, With God on Our Side, 189.

84. Memo, Bob Maddox to Anne Wexler, “Southern Baptist Convention,” 6/17/80, in file: “Southern Baptist Convention,” Name File, Carter.

85. Letters, Bill Brock to Dr. Bailey Smith, 23 June 1980, and Bailey E. Smith, President to Mr. Bill Brock, 7/8/1980, in Bailey Smith Papers, AR 671, box 1, folder 52, SBHLA.

86. Herbers, “Once-Democratic South.”

87. Church, “Politics from the Pulpit,” 35.

88. Lader, Lawrence, Politics, Power, and the Church: The Catholic Crisis and Its Challenge to American Pluralism (New York, 1987), 64.Google Scholar

89. Dr. James W. Bryant, “How Will You Vote? For Reagan or Carter . . . ,” reprinted in Pro Family Forum Newsletter, October 1980, in Pro Family Forum Collection, Wilcox Collection.

90. Ammerman, Baptist Battles, 99.

91. Letter, Mrs. Albert Kemp to Bailey E. Smith, 2 July 1980, Bailey Smith Papers, AR 671, box 1, folder 18, SBHLA.

92. Letter, Joyce Rogers to Mrs. Carter, 24 August 1979, “Adrian Rogers,” Name File, Carter. Rogers signed her letter, “Joyce Rogers (Mrs. Adrian) Wife of the President of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

93. Flippen, Jimmy Carter, the Politics of Family, and the Rise of the Religious Right, 218.

94. Letter, Mrs. Albert Kemp to Bailey E. Smith, 2 July 1980, Bailey Smith Papers, AR 671, box 1, folder 18, SBHLA.

95. Letter, Bailey E. Smith to Mrs. Albert Kemp, 8 July 1980, Bailey Smith Papers, AR 671, box 1, folder 18, SBHLA.

96. Letter, Cindy Miller to Dr. Bailey Smith, undated, Bailey Smith Papers, AR 671, box 1, folder 38, SBHLA.

97. Edwin Warner of Time magazine reported that only 34 percent of Southern Baptists voted for Carter in 1980. Warner, “New Resolve by the New Right.” Albert Menendez estimated that Southern Baptist support was 40 percent. Albert J. Menendez, Evangelicals at the Ballot Box (Amherst, 1996), 139.

98. Dionne, Why Americans Hate Politics, 234.

99. Busch, Reagan’s Victory, 125–28.

100. Letter, John Lester to Anne Wexler, 23 June 1980, quoted in Freedman, “The Religious Right and the Carter Administration,” 247.

101. Clendinen, Dudley, “‘Christian New Right’s’ Rush to Power,” New York Times, 18 August 1980.Google Scholar

102. Letter, Leslie Jacobs to Rev. Bailey Smith, 3 April 1981, Bailey Smith Papers, AR 671, box 1, folder 31, SBHLA.

103. For example, see the article series, “Does Carter’s Christianity Count?” Christianity Today, 3 November 1978, 14–21.

104. Weisman, Steven R., “Appeals Backing G.O.P. Said to Portray Views as Contrary to Bible,” New York Times, 1 November 1980.Google Scholar

105. Letter to the Editor, Mullen, Thomas J. Jr., “Question for a Question,” Christianity Today, 15 December 1978, 4.Google Scholar