John C. Pollack, summarizing a study conducted by the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, declared that “moral issues through religion have vaulted to the forefront of political dialogue.” and he concluded, “Something unusual is happening.”

Indeed, Pollack seems right that “Something unusual is happening.” The sharpness with which moral issues have entered into political dialogue is perhaps unprecedented since the slavery issue. Not an insignificant amount of the dialogue and surely an aspect of its unusualness is the entrance of evangelicals into the political arena—a presence again that looks for precedents as far back as the anti-slavery crusades.