Evil Deeds in High Places

In his new book, David E. Settje offers a popular religious history of the Watergate scandal. President Richard M. Nixon's power grab plumbed the depths of human depravity, causing a crisis of moral leadership that American Protestants sought to resolve. To gauge opinion, Settje examines denominational records and two gatekeeping periodicals, the Christian Century and Christianity Today, including lay correspondence. Nixon's courting of Christian support is well known. Less certain is how those efforts were received, especially as the administration entered free-fall. Settje concludes, “Watergate established a more intensified religious commentary in U.S. politics moving forward” (p. 24). American Protestants saw the 1972 elections as a referendum on Christian nationalism. Conservative Protestants embraced Nixon's détente and antidesegregation agenda. Liberal churchmen, meanwhile, mocked images of Nixon as a peacemaker, suggesting instead that he was a tyrant king overseeing a new Babylon. As details of the Watergate break-in began to emerge, liberals called upon Nixon to resign, thereby ridding the country of a great evil. Conservatives ignored the charges against the president, attacking the American press and accusing Nixon's critics of trying to overturn the results of the past election. All Protestants agreed that Watergate was a sign of the country's “spiritual illness,” although conservatives called for a revival of patriotic Christian piety while liberals preached repentance from abuses of power (p. 58

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