Randall Balmer on Bob Jones, Abortion and Segregation

[Dave Roberts]

[Sandy]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Stephen Fox]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: In the articular about Criswell on Wikipedia under politics we find this;

Questioned in 1973 about the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade Criswell replied, “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed." This was a common attitude among evangelicals until the mid-1970s when rising awareness of the facts surrounding abortion made it a highly-charged political issue. [9]

Criswell later changed his position on abortion and became a staunch opponent of the procedure. [10]
Quotes

Those two end notes lead us to :

(9) "How the Evangelical Church Awoke to the Abortion Issue: The Convergent Labors of Harold O. J. Brown, Francis Schaeffer, and C. Everett Koop".

(10)"SBC presidents urge Clinton: 'repent' of abortion ban veto".

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Stephen Fox]

On page 134 of Balmer's Redeemer bio of Carter, Carter's SBC pastor friend and strategist Robert Maddox says he felt like the Carter campaign against Reagan in 80 was blindsided by a "ginned up cabal" on the abortion issue.

Similarly President Ford in the 76 NC Prez Primary felt blindsided by "right winged nuts" on the Panama canal issue and other issues concocted by Richard Viguerie and the Jesse Helms network. I am convinced the ties of Helms and Pressler suggests these two blindsides were not coincidental.

Read Balmer in concert with Perlstein's new book.

I think there is new light shed.

Here is the conversation on NPR Fresh Air yesterday

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/05/337917291 ... -americans

And this great George Packer review from the New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/ ... s-division