Topics You’re Not Supposed to Discuss at Dinner: The Role of Evangelical Religion in U.S. Foreign Policy

In this episode of Horns of Dilemma, Will Inboden, editor-in-chief of the Texas National Security Review, and Ashlyn Hand, a Ph.D. candidate at the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin, speak with Lauren Turek, a professor at Trinity University, about her new book, To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Right on US Foreign Relations.

American foreign policy has often had a strong religious component, whether that be in the form of manifest destiny, or in the idea of American exceptionalism. But as Turek documents, in the late 20th century, the specific notion of human rights intersected with evangelical missionaries and their perceptions of the risks associated with communism and other important foreign policy questions, and were able to organize and influence U.S. foreign policy in a new and important way.