The gospel of J. Edgar Hoover How the FBI aided and abetted the rise of white Christian nationalism

In this important and persuasive book, Martin (Stanford Univ.) begins by describing the lawsuits he filed against the Department of Justice to make the FBI surrender the documents he needed. As head of the FBI for almost 50 years, J. Edgar Hoover shaped its ideology, and, as the subtitle argues, the bureau facilitated the rise of white Christian nationalism. Hoover saw himself as leading a war against communism and pursued alliances with white (and very occasionally Black) evangelicals, although he never called himself born-again, and with Catholics (especially Jesuits), although he was a lifelong Presbyterian. Hoover wanted white, Christian, heterosexual men as FBI special agents, physically fit and college educated. He had no use for female agents, and in recruiting outside speakers, he remained aloof even around staunchly anti-communist women. Despite his hostility toward gay people, Hoover risked gossip because of his close relationship with his protégé Clyde Tolson. Martin focuses on the FBI's ties to Christian churches, noting that when FBI communion breakfasts and Jesuit-led retreats worried Protestants, Hoover defused their concern with Protestant vesper services. Hoover became especially close to the newspaper Christianity Today. Surprisingly, he condemned Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --David M. Fahey, emeritus, Miami University (Ohio)

In this revealing history, Martin (Preaching on Wax), director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, contends that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI "joined forces with the founding architects of white evangelicalism to aid and abet the rise of white Christian nationalism as a legitimate force in American politics." Drawing on recently declassified documents, Martin details how Hoover built the FBI into a "white Christian force" that battled against communism, desegregation, and other perceived threats to "traditional morality." In so doing, Hoover became a hero to white evangelicals even though he wasn't born again, never married, and "regularly ordered his agents to conduct unlawful break-ins and unconstitutional surveillance, and to lie about it under oath." Along the way, Martin documents the FBI's spiritual retreats and Catholic Communion breakfasts; Hoover's frequent contributions to Christianity Today, "the intellectual mainframe of white evangelicalism"; high praise for Hoover from televangelist Billy Graham and Catholic bishop Fulton Sheen; and the FBI's crusade to discredit Martin Luther King Jr. as a "clerical fraud." Marked by Martin's impressive research and sharp character sketches, this is a fresh and invigorating look at the interplay between faith, politics, and American law enforcement. Photos. (Feb.)