Postwar evangelical political power moved through direct presidential access and official state religion markers

Evidence

As president, Eisenhower maintained a close relationship with Graham and his evangelical supporters. He asked Graham to help select Bible verses for his inaugural address, and he kept an annotated red leather Bible that Graham had given him on his bedside table. He began opening cabinet meetings with prayer, and he appeared at the first National Prayer Breakfast in 1953, an annual event organized with Graham’s assistance by members of “The Fellowship,” a secretive group that wielded tremendous power by connecting religious, political, and business leaders to advance their mutual interests. In 1954, Congress added the words “one nation under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the following year Eisenhower signed into law the addition of “In God We Trust” to the nation’s currency. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 82

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Fellowship/secretive prayer breakfast network now documented in contemporary reporting on the National Prayer Breakfast; echoes the institutional capture theme in Du Mez’s broader argument. — connects to: Free travel and fellowship lure pastors into organized political lobbying. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 406; US Zionism’s political base shifted from liberal Democrats to the Christian Right — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 687; A secretary of state publicly identified as an evangelical in diplomacy — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 176
• SHARE: The specific detail that Eisenhower kept Graham’s red leather Bible on his bedside table and opened cabinet meetings with prayer is narrow enough to interest one person tracking religion-state entanglement.