Evangelicals embraced Reagan despite his thin religious credentials because he embraced their politics.

Evidence

True, Reagan’s religious credentials left something to be desired. Although raised Presbyterian, his church attendance was sporadic. There was also the matter of his divorce. “Reagan was not the best Christian who ever walked the face of the earth,” acknowledged one leader of the Christian Right, “but we really didn’t have a choice.” His record as governor of California was also mixed. He had supported the ERA, legalized therapeutic abortion, and refused to support an anti-gay-rights referendum. But by 1980 he had become proficient in conservative talking points. He supported prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools, came out against abortion, and reversed course on the ERA, deciding that it denigrated stay-at-home mothers and would force women into combat. (He placed Beverly LaHaye on his campaign’s family policy advisor board.) What had drawn Reagan to the Republican Party were the same things that had drawn evangelicals: a mix of anticommunism, Christian nationalism, and nostalgia for a mythical American past. By the time he took the stage in Dallas, Reagan was fluent in the language of the Christian Right. Echoing Goldwater years earlier, he promised peace through strength. Rejecting Carter’s “despair and pessimism,” he declared that America could still become that “shining city upon a hill.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 238

Categorization

• XREF: Direct precursor to the book’s central continuity argument: evangelicals chose political muscularity over genuine religious piety, foreshadowing the Trump dynamic.
• SEED: Angle for an essay: the 1980 Reagan embrace as the original template for the ‘hold your nose but vote for him anyway’ bargain that the book uses to explain Trump support.