Swords and Plowshares

Evangelicals are warmongering nationalists—right?

Many assume that evangelicals have always shared the ideology and approach of the Moral Majority. But the truth is much more complex. Historically, evangelical rank and file have not held to one position about war; instead, they are strewn across the spectrum from love of peace to glorying in war.

Timothy Padgett presents evangelicals in their own words. And in so doing he complicates our common perceptions of evangelical attitudes towards war and peace. Evangelical leaders regularly wrote about the temporal and eternal implications of war from World War II to the Vietnam War. Padgett allows us to see firsthand how these evangelicals actually spoke about war and love of country.

Instead of blind ideologues we meet concerned people of conviction struggling to reconcile the demands of a world in turmoil with the rule of the Prince of peace.

Timothy D. Padgett (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is the Resident Theologian of BreakPoint.org with the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His research interests focus on the way Christians argue for diverse viewpoints while sharing a common biblical foundation—particularly regarding the relationship between church and state, Christ and culture, and war and peace.