President Jimmy Carter’s personal service to the poor after he left the White House in 1981 is remembered as Christian charity in action. What is not so well remembered is his role, albeit unwitting, in bringing evangelical Christians into the political process.

Without Carter—who died Dec. 29 at age 100, and who will lie in state at the Capitol until Thursday—the Religious Right might not have come into existence.

In 1976, Carter was elected with the support of evangelical Christians. Four years later, in 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected with their overwhelming support.

What happened?

In the first days of his candidacy, Carter threw the mainstream media into a tizzy by proclaiming himself a “born-again Christian.” As reporters scrambled to find out what that meant, Carter’s self-revelation gave heart to born-again Christians: Finally, after years of being isolated from the political process, here was somebody they could identify with, one of themselves running for president.

Once elected, however, instead of dancing with the folks who brought him, Carter ignored or disavowed his Christian base, and instead followed the lead of his appointees, who were on the Left.

First came the attack on parents’ rights, then came the attack on........

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