Book Review: Dual Citizens: Politics and American Evangelicalism

This is a collection of editorial pieces and articles from Christianity Today from 1956 until 2016. It provides a snapshot of American evangelical thinking on a range of issues over that period. The stance of Christianity Today, according to Timothy Paggett, the editor of this volume, has been “engaged neutrality” (emphasis his, 1); and the journal probably represents
“mainstream evangelicalism” in the United States (though what “mainstream evangelicalism” is in the US today may be somewhat difficult to determine).

The selection of pieces in this book have been gathered under five chapters covering the following topics: “U.S. Presidents”; “Religious Right and Evangelical Left”; “Communism and Foreign Policy”; “Domestic Affairs”; “God and Country”. The book includes a Subject Index, which aids a reader in following up a particular topic across the book.

In some ways, the first chapter on U.S. Presidents is the most interesting; and the most comprehensive, given that the pieces are selected from across the decades beginning in 1956 and concluding with three articles in 2016, one stating why the writer (Ron Sider) was voting for Hilary Clinton, one an interview with James Dobson on why he was voting for Donald Trump, and a third by a black evangelical (Sho Baraka) on why neither candidate fitted the bill. Interestingly, although it was mentioned in the Introduction, an editorial written in 2019 by the then editor, Mark Galli, on why Trump should be impeached was omitted from the selection. This seemed to me an unfortunate omission: perhaps it was available too late in the editorial process (although known to the editor), perhaps it was deemed too partisan, or too controversial?

The remainder of the book contains editorials (the authors of which are simply noted as “The Editors”) and pieces by individual writers that cover a range of topics. Under the chapter “Domestic Affairs”, the pieces are mainly about two issues: race relations and civil rights, and abortion. Under the chapter “Communism and Foreign Policy”, a least ten of sixteen of the selection deal with various aspects of communism. As a consequence, most of the pieces selected come from the decades when these seemed “front of mind”, hence quite a few are from the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed the balance of articles throughout the volume seem to be drawn from the decades covering the 1950s through the 1970s. While a number of others cover the 1990s, in my opinion a greater selection of pieces from the 2000s would have been welcome.

What impression of American evangelical Christianity does this volume give? First of all, there is a tendency to equate the United States with the best of “Judeo-Christian” values and a “Christian nation”. “Some nations are most hospitable to Christian truth than others. And some nations are more thoroughly responsive than others to Christian motivations and doing the will of God…. When America is most faithful to its origin, to its truest self and to its God, it is that kind of nation”, writes Edward L.R. Elson (in 1956, 407). “The American cultural myth is a rich one because of its basic inspiration derived from the person of God”, writes S Richey Kamm, in 1957 (425). Perhaps these attitudes arise from what Paggett states in his Introduction is “an endemic spirit of chosen-ness” (3). But it is difficult to square with some of the United States’ behaviour in the decades since the Second World War.

There is a slight naiveté in some of the writing about US Presidents and their faith. It almost seemed as though some use of the right language, support of a certain cause, or a readiness to pray in public was sufficient for some Presidents to earn the descriptor “evangelical”, despite what else might characterise the President’s time in office. Interestingly, the one President who wore his faith on his sleeve, and was assuredly evangelical, Jimmy Carter, received criticism for being too well-intentioned, but not politically adept.

The discussions of abortion, covering the years 1966 to 2015, range from reasonably even-handed reportage of the state-of-play, to arguments for opposition to abortion, and the rights of pro-lifer opponents of abortion to protest, and analysis of the political scene regarding abortion rights. This issue, along with others covered, have a way of remaining perennially current, and sometimes regaining front-page coverage, as it were. To that extent, the essays in this book, though dated, remain of interest and worth revisiting.

Derek Tovey is the book review editor for Stimulus.