Description

The shocking untold story of how the FBI partnered with white evangelicals to champion a vision of America as a white Christian nation

Lerone Martin draws on thousands of newly declassified FBI documents and memos to describe how under J Edgar Hoovers leadership FBI agents attended spiritual retreats and worship services creating an FBI religious culture that fashioned Gmen into soldiers and ministers of Christian America Martin shows how prominent figures such as Billy Graham Fulton Sheen and countless other ministers from across the country partnered with the FBI and laundered bureau intel in their sermons while the faithful crowned Hoover the adjudicator of true evangelical faith and allegiance These partnerships not only solidified the political norms of modern white evangelicalism they also contributed to the political rise of white Christian nationalism establishing religion and race as the bedrock of the modern national security state and setting the terms for todays domestic terrorism debates

Taking listeners from the pulpits and pews of smalltown America to the Oval Office and from the grassroots to denominational boardrooms The Gospel of J Edgar Hoover completely transforms how we understand the FBI white evangelicalism and our nations entangled history of religion and politics