Mention Richard Nixon and what first comes to mind is his Machiavellian cunning. Here is a man for whom power — acquiring it, maintaining it, and wielding it against his enemies — came first, right up until his brutal downfall.

But there was another, equally powerful force driving America's 37th president: his conflicted yet sincere Christian faith. Far from being a one-dimensional political animal, Nixon was a man deeply entangled in a lifelong struggle with God.

This struggle, as Daniel Silliman’s new biography, "One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon's Search for Salvation," reveals, shaped his actions and haunted his conscience until his final days.

Silliman, an editor at Christianity Today, carefully peels back the layers of Nixon’s public persona to expose the spiritual tensions beneath.