The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism

The shocking, untold story of how the FBI partnered with white evangelicals to champion a vision of America as a white Christian nation.

On a Sunday morning in 1966, a group of white evangelicals dedicated a stained-glass window to J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI director was not an evangelical, but his Christian admirers anointed him as their political champion, believing he would lead America back to God. The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover reveals how Hoover and his FBI teamed up with leading white evangelicals and Catholics to pursue a vision of a white Christian America by any means necessary.

Lerone Martin draws on thousands of newly declassified FBI documents and memos to show how, under Hoover’s leadership, FBI agents attended spiritual retreats and worship services, creating a religious culture within the bureau that cast G-men as both soldiers and ministers of Christian America. Martin demonstrates how prominent figures such as Billy Graham, Fulton Sheen, and countless other ministers across the country partnered with the FBI, incorporating bureau intelligence into their sermons, while the faithful elevated Hoover as an arbiter of true evangelical belief and allegiance.

These partnerships not only solidified the political norms of modern white evangelicalism, but also contributed to the rise of white Christian nationalism—establishing religion and race as foundational elements of the modern national security state and shaping the terms of today’s domestic terrorism debates.

Taking readers from the pulpits and pews of small-town America to the Oval Office, and from grassroots communities to denominational boardrooms, The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover reshapes our understanding of the FBI, white evangelicalism, and the nation’s deeply entangled history of religion and politics.