Abstract

AbstractThough rhetorical critics have been very attentive to John F. Kennedy’s rhetoric during the 1960 campaign, less attention has been paid to that of his conservative Protestant antagonists. To address the omission, this essay considers W. A. Criswell’s July 3, 1960 address, “George Truett and Religious Liberty,” portions of which were reprinted and widely distributed as a pamphlet titled Religious Freedom, the Church, the State, and Senator Kennedy. These texts, we argue, are exemplary of a larger Protestant strategy during the 1960 race. Because Kennedy’s candidacy had prompted fierce vitriol from the anti-Catholic Right, conservative Protestant leaders from across the denominational spectrum tempered their attacks so as not to alienate centrist voters. Their measured adoption of religious freedom arguments allowed them to occupy the respectable middle, assailing Kennedy’s Catholicism while parrying charges of religious bigotry. In Criswell’s rhetoric, we find a pure distillation of this strategy, identifying it as a species of respectability politics with enduring appeal—this time from the Right.

Journal
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published
2019-03-01
DOI
10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0033
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (73)

  1. 1. Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, Dallas 1963 (New York: Hachette Books, 2013). In 1960, Hunt was reput…
  2. 2. Minutaglio and Davis, Dallas 1963, 49–54.
  3. 3. The one notable exception is found in James E. Towns, The Social Conscience of W. A. Criswell (Dallas, TX:…
  4. 4. See, for instance, Eric C. Miller, “Fighting for Freedom: Liberal Argumentation in Culture War Rhetoric,” …
  5. 5. Having flared in 1928 in response to the nomination of Al Smith, anti-Catholicism was later nourished by t…
Show all 73 →
  1. 6. For the definitive accounts of the campaign, see Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (New …
  2. 7. For one such exception, see Beryl F. McClerren, “Southern Baptists and the Religious Issue during the Pres…
  3. 8. See Harold Barrett, "John F. Kennedy before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association," Central States S…
  4. David Henry, "Senator John F. Kennedy Encounters the Religious Question: 'I Am Not the Catholic Candidate for…
  5. Barbara Warnick, "Argument Schemes and the Construction of Social Reality: John F. Kennedy's Address to the H…
  6. and Michael J. Hostetler, "Gov. Al Smith Confronts the Catholic Question: The Rhetorical Legacy of the 1928 C…
  7. 9. Henry, “Senator John F. Kennedy Encounters the Religious Question,” 154.
  8. 10. James Reston, “Can the Religious Issue Be Controlled?” New York Times, April 10, 1960, E10.
  9. 11. Cabell Phillips, “The Catholic Issue,” New York Times, September 4, 1960, 127.
  10. 12. Leo Egan, “Religion: U.S. Campaign,” New York Times, October 30, 1960, E4.
  11. 13. Egan, “Religion: U.S. Campaign,” E4.
  12. 14. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–…
  13. 15. See E. Frances White, Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability (Ph…
  14. 16. Edward H. Miller, Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy (Chicago, IL: Uni…
  15. 17. Perhaps the most obvious challenge to our application of this term to this demographic concerns the reali…
  16. 18. See Daniel A. Poling, Mine Eyes Have Seen (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), 256-61
  17. and "A Sanctuary of Brotherhood," Christian Herald, December 1959, 56-59.
  18. 19. Among other prominent religious leaders, Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam cited the story as grounds for…
  19. 20. “Kennedy Disputes Interfaith Story,” New York Times, December 9, 1959, 37.
  20. 21. William G. Weart, “Dispute Clouded Chapel at Start,” New York Times, January 17, 1960, 51.
  21. 22. Weart, “Dispute Clouded Chapel at Start,” 51.
  22. 23. Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake and Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, “A Protestant View of a Catholic for President,…
  23. 24. E. S. James, Baptist Standard, February 17, 1960, 1.
  24. 25. “Protestant Groups’ Statements,” New York Times, September 8, 1960, 25.
  25. 26. “Peale to Head Protestant Forum on Religious Issue in Campaign,” New York Times, September 4, 1960, 49.
  26. 27. “Protestant Groups’ Statements,” New York Times, September 8, 1960, 25.
  27. 28. “The Campaign: The Power of Negative Thinking,” Time, September 19, 1960, 21
  28. 29. Criswell’s most controversial statements had concerned race. In 1956, he gave a fiery speech to the South…
  29. 30. See Miller, Nut Country.
  30. 31. W. A. Criswell, “George Truett and Religious Liberty,” address to the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Jul…
  31. 32. Criswell, “George Truett and Religious Liberty.”
  32. 33. Criswell, “George Truett and Religious Liberty.”
  33. 34. Criswell, “George Truett and Religious Liberty.”
  34. 35. Criswell, “George Truett and Religious Liberty.”
  35. 36. Criswell’s invocation of a singular, unified Protestant audience validates our claim that religious freed…
  36. 37. Readers may observe that much of Criswell’s case draws upon widespread anxiety not just about Catholic su…
  37. 38. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 3.
  38. 39. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 3.
  39. 40. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 3.
  40. 41. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 4.
  41. 42. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 4.
  42. 43. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 4.
  43. 44. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 4. It is a testament to the quality of the composition that the pamphlet s…
  44. 45. So common were such claims, in fact, that Kennedy addressed them directly in his Los Angeles acceptance a…
  45. 46. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 4.
  46. 47. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 5.
  47. 48. This is a point on which the distinction between speech and printed text is especially important. Though …
  48. 49. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 6. Here, too, Criswell had delivered these lines with a climactic intensit…
  49. 50. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 7–8.
  50. 51. Criswell, “Religious Freedom,” 8.
  51. 52. See Minutaglio and Davis, Dallas 1963, 42.
  52. 53. Others have made this mistake as well. See, for instance, Jim Towns, The Legacy of W. A. Criswell (Nacogd…
  53. and Neil J. Young, "'A Saga of Sacrilege': Evangelicals Respond to the Second Vatican Council," in American E…
  54. 54. Minutaglio and Davis, Dallas 1963, 49.
  55. 55. Religious Freedom, the Church, the State, and Senator Kennedy, Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, …
  56. 56. The 1960 election is famous for being among the closest races in American history, decided by 112,881 vot…
  57. 57. Minutaglio and Davis, Dallas 1963, 53.
  58. 58. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Religious Literature: Dr. W. A. Criswell, https://www.jf…
  59. 59. Charles Grutzner, “Poling Praises Kennedy’s Stand on the Religion Issue,” New York Times, September 14, 1…
  60. 60. Grutzner, “Poling Praises Kennedy’s Stand,” 34.
  61. 61. “Issue of Religion Barred by Poling,” New York Times, October 17, 1960, 22.
  62. 62. George Dugan, “Politics Avoided in Sermons Here,” New York Times, November 7, 1960, 25.
  63. 63. It might be more accurate to call Keith’s book a hagiography, as the author himself admits: “As a biograp…
  64. 64. W. A. Criswell, Standing on the Promises: The Autobiography of W. A. Criswell (Dallas, TX: Word Publishin…
  65. 65. “CBS Evening News for 1984-09-06,” Vanderbilt Television News Archive, https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/prog…
  66. 66. This argument is supported by much of Jonathan J. Edwards’s analysis of fundamentalist politics. See Edwa…
  67. 67. See Eric C. Miller, ed., The Rhetoric of Religious Freedom in the United States (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2017).
  68. 68. The argument that mainstream conservative Christian advocates tend privately to sympathize with and publi…