In 1932, a group of religious leaders gathered in Indianapolis to advance their long-standing project, a plan to fundamentally “Christianize” American society. The meeting had been convened by the Federal Council of Churches, then the dominant voice of American Protestantism. The organization ratified a platform declaring that “the total abolition of poverty” was “entirely consistent with the ideal which Jesus and all His true disciples have taught and realized.” FCC delegates supported “a planned economic system” and called on leaders in government and across society to make that system “more rational, more productive, more humane, more righteous.” For a time, the strategy worked. The FCC’s friends ascended to high places. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, cast the New Deal as “the carrying out of the social philosophy of the founder of Christianity.” Labor Secretary Frances Perkins poured her energies into the expansion of the American welfare state because her faith demanded nothing less. She collaborated behind the scenes with Christian leaders to advance landmark legislation, including the Social Security and Fair …