The white Christian left was once a powerful influence on American politics, in an era when faith did not dictate political inclination. Then came the 1968 declaration against the Vietnam War by the National Council of Churches. President-elect Richard Nixon would later reject liberal Christian leaders – and become the first of a series of presidents who built their base on the anxieties of white Christian conservatives. Phillip talks with professor Jill Gill of Boise State University in Idaho, whose parents were a conservative evangelical and a secular liberal. She tells us how evangelicals became synonymous with conservatism in today’s political landscape.

Read more: Anti-war protests 50 years ago helped mold the modern Christian right, by David Mislin

Music: “And never come back” by Soft and Furious, found on FreeMusicArchive.org, licensed under CC0 1

Archival audio: Martin Luther King, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.: The Role of the Church Militant

Lecture by William Sloane Coffin on the Vietnam War, November 19, 1972

They’ll Know We Are Christians Peter Scholtes 1966

NIXON TAPES: Vietnam is Kennedy’s Fault (Billy Graham)

LBJ and Martin Luther King, 11/5/64. 3.20p.

Ann Coulter - Godless: The Church of Liberalism

President Obama sings Amazing Grace (C-SPAN)

Obama links raising taxes to Christianity

Evangelicals turn on Trump over immigration