Evangelicals losing ground (or are they?)

This is from Mainstream Baptist, via Talk2Action.

Christine Wicker has published a new book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation. In this book, she suggests that the American public has been conned into thinking that evangelical Christians are a large and significant percentage of our population.

Using statistics and reports from evangelical groups and organizations, Ms. Wicker shows that evangelicals comprise about seven percent of the U.S. population and that percentage is going down, not up.

"For the past thirty years, 7 percent of the population has swayed elections and positioned itself as the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong. By puffing its numbers and its authority, it has gotten legislation passed that opposes the popular will and has divided the country into acrimonious camps. It has monopolized the media so effectively that other religious voices have been all but silenced. It has been feared and loathed, revered and loved. It has been impossible to ignore. But underneath its image of power and pomp, the evangelical nation is falling apart. Every day the percentage of evangelicals in America decreases, a loss that began more than one hundred years ago."

The second idea Ms. Wicker discusses in her book is the "desire that she and millions of other Americans have for a faith that does not require them to surrender their intellect." For millions of members of mainline denominations that has never been the case. Evidently, the Southern Baptist milieu is somewhat less susceptible to reason.


With regard to her statistical information that the percentage of evangelicals is dropping in this country - let us hope she is right. Enough is enough!

But there is a huge problem. The evangelical power in the United States is held in secret, by a group of leaders who confess Jesus as their model, but this Jesus is not the Jesus who ended up on a cross. This Jesus is Paul's Christ who rules from the seventh heaven. This Jesus is a Jesus who gives power to those who seek him - the power to rule nations and peoples - all for the glory of god, of course.

This evangelical group is known as The Family. The story of The Family is told in all its chilling detail in Jeff Sharlet's new book called The Family. These evangelicals are not the side-show freaks that inhabit the world of the Pat Robertsons, the Falwells, the Dobsons, the Hagees, or the Parsleys. These evangelicals walk the halls of Congress and sit next to or on the thrones of the rulers of the world. These evangelicals seldom if ever make the headlines. They don't wear their faith on their sleeves, but work behind the scenes, in prayer cells, in legislative chambers, on presidential staffs. These evangelicals believe their mission is to rule the world for God.

They are very dangerous.