Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter
*Starred Review* The ambitions of a Georgia governor and former peanut farmer aligned with the reemergence of evangelicals on the political scene in 1976. Horrified by the immorality of the Nixon administration and enamored of the overt religiosity of candidate Carter, evangelicals rushed to support their kindred Christian. But four years later, embracing social conservatism and capitalism, they’d moved on to Ronald Reagan’s brand of religion. Religious historian Balmer, a college student during Carter’s presidential campaign, has maintained his fascination with Carter’s political rise and fall as a reflection of changes among evangelicals themselves as they morphed into the Religious Right. Balmer looks at Carter’s life through the prism of his faith. Carter learned the importance of faith and progressive ideals from his parents and the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and others. Balmer explores the paradoxes of a man balancing faith and ideals against the pragmatics of politics and the evangelical tide that favored him and later turned so vehemently against him. He also explores how Carter fits into the long history of progressive evangelicalism in the U.S. as he offers readers a new perspective on Carter’s faith journey and a religious sector that has come to be reduced and simplified in the nation’s social and political landscape. --Vanessa Bush