Billy Graham fused Christian identity with American patriotism as early as the 1950s

Evidence

In a 1953 rally from the steps of the Capitol, he cast the United States as a Christian nation in need of a revival. Graham firmly believed that to be a good American one must be a Christian: “I want to tell you it is more patriotic, more patriotic, to be a Christian, to live for God, than it is to carry a gun in time of war.” He consistently frames the United States as a lone bulwark against the rising tide of communism and atheism. “America,” he claimed, “is the great spiritual arsenal of the world.” Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that he believed from early in his ministry that bending the ear of presidents could pay enormous dividends for inserting Christianity into the public sphere and, in his estimation, making America more Christian. — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 237

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Billy Graham’s masculine celebrity consolidated American evangelical identity — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 54; Rural evangelical communities fused Christian and American identity as one — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 53; The postwar era forged evangelical identity from gender, militarism, and nationalism — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 27 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Graham fused patriarchal family structure with Christian nationalism #expands (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 63
• Evangelical anticommunist events fused faith, patriotism, and celebrity in the early 1960s #exemplifies (0.83) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 96
• Rural evangelical communities fused Christian and American identity as one #corroborates (0.82) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 53
• White Christian nationalism fuses a specific Christianity with American civic life #expands (0.82) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 141
• The postwar era forged evangelical identity from gender, militarism, and nationalism #expands (0.80) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 27
• Billy Graham’s masculine celebrity consolidated American evangelical identity #expands (0.78) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 54
• America’s postwar Judeo-Christian identity excluded Black Americans and Muslims #qualifies (0.78)
• Christian nationalism fuses free-market capitalism into American Christian identity #expands (0.77) — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross, 161
• Evangelicals reached the political mainstream and allied with Republicans by the 1950s #corroborates (0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 85
• Political overreach, not theology, shifted Billy Graham away from domestic politics #qualifies (0.75) — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 238
• American national identity remains fundamentally Judeo-Christian at its core #expands (0.73) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 159
• American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right #complicates (0.72) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 41
• Religion unified American identity while race divided it #complicates (0.71) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 286