Jimmy Carter and the demise of progressive evangelicalism

Jimmy Carter rode to the White House in 1976 on the twin currents of his reputation as a “New South” governor and a resurgence of progressive evangelicalism in the early 1970s. Progressive evangelicalism, which traces its lineage to 19th-century evangelicals and to the commands of Jesus to care for “the least of these,” represented a very different version of evangelical activism from that of the religious right.

In the wake of the Second Great Awakening in the decades surrounding the turn of the 19th century, evangelicals in the antebellum period unleashed their moral energies to reform society according to the norms of godliness. They enlisted in peace movements, criticized capitalism, and sought to eradicate slavery. They supported prison reform to rehabilitate criminals and public education as a way for children of the less affluent to improve their lot. They supported equal rights for women, including voting rights.

To a remarkable degree, the evangelical agenda of social reform endured into the early decades of the 20th century, when its program expanded to include, in addition to women’s rights, the rights of workers to organize. William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic nominee for president, is most often remembered for his less-than-stellar performance at the Scopes trial of 1925, but a more accurate portrayal of Bryan would place him squarely in the tradition of progressive evangelicalism.