10. Barry Goldwater Provided a Political Refuge
By this time, though, there were hints of a return of fundamentalists to public life. Billy Graham had empowered evangelicals and was outspoken against the Engel v Vitale decision. However, the political system as a whole was profoundly liberal; were the Protestants to re-enter public life, they would need to be able to align themselves with a particular candidate or at least an ideology that they could agree. At this time, a political movement known as conservativism was beginning, and it purported to advocate traditional, family values. Conservativism became the politics of choice for many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians.
In 1964, Barry Goldwater ran as a conservative Republican against Lyndon B. Johnson, a progressive Democrat, for the presidency. Goldwater spoke out against the banning of prayer in public schools, particularly in a time of moral and social crisis, when the threat of nuclear war was on the horizon and earned the vote of many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians. However, Johnson took the election in a landslide victory. It would seem that though the conservative Protestants were incensed at the encroaching government, they were not incensed enough. A new Supreme Court decision would be necessary to wake the sleeping giant.