An African American with the middle name of Hussein, Barack Obama challenged the values—spoken and unspoken—that many white evangelicals held dear. As an adult convert to Christianity, he could speak with eloquence and theological sophistication about his faith, but for many evangelicals this mattered little. For some, racial prejudice shaped their political leanings. But even for those who did not hold explicit racist convictions, their faith remained intertwined with their whiteness.
