The Space Crusades: Carl McIntire and the Religious Cold War 1950-1975

Abstract

The Space Crusade explores a unique relationship between scientific and evangelical history. The twentieth-century crusades stem from fundamentalist movements in Christian America led by prominent evangelical figures such as Carl McIntire, Billy Graham, and Billy James Hargis. Their campaign through radio, television, and protest fought to preserve evangelical-fundamentalist values against the threat of communism and atheism. Their ideology greatly rooted itself in biblical End Times theology during the Cold War. Evangelical theologians considered themselves at the frontlines of battle against the Soviet Union. But the war on communism would take to new heights in 1957, when the Soviet Union pushed the Cold War into the heavens, launching the Space Race. This essay explores the challenges of Soviet science and technology faced by evangelicals, the fundamentalist war on communism, and the peculiar plans of Carl McIntire’s space ministry at Cape Canaveral.