With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America

And now the serious action begins. 1988: Robertson decides to run for president against Bush and he starts winning in the primaries. He even prays in public for the Lord to avert a hurricane from the East Coast, and, what do you know, the hurricane changes course. Things look dim for the professionals. But there's already been the Jim and Tammy Faye scandal, and Bush has the Dirty Harry of all campaign managers, the late Lee Atwater (the man who made Willy Horton Dukakis's running mate), working for him. And what do you know: the Jimmy Swaggert scandal breaks, just in time to kill Robertson's chances for the nomination.

And it worked. Robertson threw his votes to Bush, and Bush won.

But all is not well. Now the Religious Right understands that it holds the whip hand, not the major parties. Bush - who emerges, at least here, as a decent fellow trying to do decent things in a secular world - displeases the evangelicals by doing things like outlawing hate crimes against gays and lesbians, and actually allowing gays into the White House. And meanwhile the baton has passed from the aging, increasingly avuncular Pat Robertson to the young, gung-ho glib, rosycheeked, wouldn't-you-like-your-daughter-to-date-this-guy Ralph Reed, head of the Christian Coalition and very likely the canniest fellow in the whole story.

Reed, as he says in a remarkably candid interview on the show, understands something none of the other prophets has: that all politics begins at the local level, and builds to the presidency. His coalition, he says, is an attempt to bring together economic conservatives with life-style conservatives: and he seems to be succeeding remarkably well. His conciliatory attitude, in the last episode, is countered by cross-cut interviews with Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue, who will have none of Reed's moderation, and who insists upon an immediate transformation of multicultural America into a Bible-believing nation.

As Wallace Stevens wrote, "The imperfect is our paradise." The American dream has always been that politics and religion could work together. If it does nothing else, this marvelous series indicates to what extent that dream remains a dream.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Commonweal Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning