An anti-war evangelical candidate was rejected by evangelical voters in 1972

Evidence

Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, was a former ministry student, son of an evangelical minister, and a deeply religious candidate. Despite having served as a fighter pilot in the Second World War, however, he opposed the war in Vietnam and proposed large cuts in military spending and amnesty for draft dodgers. In his acceptance speech, McGovern issued a prophetic critique of the nation and its culture of militarism. He promised to end bombing in Indochina on Inauguration Day, and within ninety days to bring every American soldier home: “There will be no more Asian children running ablaze from bombed-out schools” and no more Americans sent to die “trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 109

Categorization

• XREF: McGovern as evangelically-rooted anti-war candidate is a useful counterpoint for the reader’s contest — is there an alternative evangelical strand that Du Mez’s militant-masculinity claim seeks to marginalize? — connects to: Mid-century evangelicals boycotted voting as politics belonged to Satan — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 70