CFP: Jimmy Carter and the ‘Year of the Evangelicals’ Reconsidered (New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Saint Anselm College)
CFP Jimmy Carter and the ‘Year of the Evangelicals’ Reconsidered April 6-8, 2017 New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Saint Anselm College Manchester, New Hampshire In 1976 Newsweek magazine borrowed a phrase from pollster George Gallup and proclaimed that year the “Year of the Evangelicals.” Both presidential candidates – Republican Gerald Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter – claimed to be “born again” Christians, a claim made by one third of all Americans; and significant proportions of Protestants and Catholics told Gallup’s pollsters that the Bible should be taken literally, a marker of conservative evangelical Christianity. This phenomenon caught journalists by surprise, and they struggled to understand this new segment of the electorate, beginning at the top with the candidacy of Jimmy Carter. The election of 1976 brought evangelicals back into the political arena. While many of these people supported Carter’s candidacy and made the difference in his election, the ways in […]