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The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church

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This is an important book by a veteran observer of American religious life -- explaining in plain, convincing terms why a lot of our assumptions about the power of "evangelicals" and "megachurches" are myths. If you're inside this movement yourself, Wicker's book almost certainly will open your eyes to the fragile nature of your movement and your style of doing church.

Wicker is a veteran religion writer, who reported on staff at the Dallas Morning News for a number of years. She's also the well-received author of a couple of earlier books on America's spiritual culture. Her 2003 book, "Lily Dale: The Town That Talks to the Dead (Plus)," examined Americans' fascination with "Spiritualists" that stretches back at least 130 years. That turned into a best seller and received a lot of media attention.

Later, she wrote a book, "Not In Kansas Anymore: Dark Arts, Sex Spells, Money Magic, and Other Things Your Neighbors Aren't Telling You (Plus)," about Americans' long-running interest in, at least occasionally, dabbling in eccentric traditions.

Now, she's back with this book-length examination of America's large evangelical movement -- scraping away at the often fearsome political veneer that, she argues persuasively, some very sharp political operatives have draped over the surface of a major segment of American churches.

There's an angry edge to the opening section of this book in which she takes these political operatives to task. In fact, some of Wicker's opening lines are written with, we might say, journalistic hyperbole. Here's an example. She argues in the Introduction: "Evangelical Christianity in America is dying," and, "Nobody knows what to do about it." Well, it's clear that evangelicals will survive, even if their community shrinks as it shakes itself out. We've still got remnants of religious movements that have survived thousands of years. Evangelicals won't become extinct. And, concerning that second line: It's also obvious that lots of people think they know what to do about this. Jim Wallis (author of "The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America") certainly does, so does Ken Wilson (author of "Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back") -- and so do many other prophetic voices emerging in the evangelical world.

Don't let the sharpness of that opening edge or those overly broad statements dissuade you from reading this terrific book. Wicker knows this field after years as a journalist specializing in covering religion.
And you'll find that, even though the book opens in anger, it winds up turning for home with a remarkably compassionate voice. Toward the end of her book, she points out to readers that many of us probably have had doubts, questions and alternative interpretations kicking around in our hearts and minds for years -- and, finally, we're reaching a point at which we don't have to blindly accept an authority figure dictating doctrine to us. We're all on a search in this era, she argues. And, for many readers, reaching that point in her book is going to feel like a warm hug from a friend.

What's really fascinating here is that Wallis in a couple of recent books and Wilson, especially in his newest book, make somewhat similar points from an evangelical perspective. And they're not alone. This doesn't undercut Wicker's book -- in fact, it underlines that she's onto something very important that's emerging across the evangelical landscape.

Wicker is not merely arguing that the evangelical movement is losing members at the fringes. Quite the contrary, she's arguing that some of the smartest and most deeply committed people at the core of the movement -- say like Ken Wilson himself -- are restlessly shaking the pillars of the movement and especially are telling many of the "religious right" political operators to hit the road.

This book is a solid choice for helpful analysis in an era of very confusing religious change.

I enjoyed Christine's work at the Dallas Morning News. She was part of one of the best religion pages in the country.

Two Postives about the book:

1.) She looks at the religious landscape of America from a long view bringing together many parts to form a complete picture. She does not connect the dots but does it more in an impressionistic fashion. She talks about the decline of the American church and that church leaders look outside the US for examples of leadership. That is Philip Jenkins thesis in the Next Christendom. She brings Phyllis Tickle and the emerging folks into the mix who talks about the next cultural quake that will shift Christian thinking like the Reformation, the monastic movement, etc. She quotes George Barna, the evangelical pollster. I nodded several times and she wrote a synthesis of what my reading and thinking has been as I read and listen to Christian thinkers.
2.) Her antecdotes are humanizing of evangelicals and former evangelicals.
They provide the human dimension.
3.) Her journalistic writing style provides a quick read. I read the book in about three and half hours.

Negatives
1.) Wicker has a point of view. That point of view is not entirely neutral and she claims that. Is it fair? At times, but at other times I wonder about her interpretation of folks. I will say that point of view is worth hearing, but she is part of the evangelical church that has fallen away. She is an actor in this movement. So, there are points when I question her point of view. However, for some folks that may mean that she provides a voice that needs to be heard.

2.) I think she left out one interesting aspect of the problem of the church. Education. The evangelical church of today now prides itself that its leaders are not overly educated. They have a life of experience that has prepared them to pastor not a seminary education. While the workforce is getting more specialized and more educated, the local church is not lifting up education as essential to be on staff.
In fact, a lack of education is more helpful in growing a church at times.

Continuing as we face a flat world more educated world...Evangelical Christianity will lack the ability to communicate with it. All of those students who learn creationism will now have to compete in classrooms with folks who learned evolution. The test is on evolution not creationism.

I think the impact of evangelicals on education is also an element that is part of the disconnect with the world that people in the evangelical world feel and is leading to the decline.

Overall, this book is an introduction and synthesis of folks who have done some of the heavier lifting. Willow Creek, George Barna, Jim Wallis, MacLaren, et al. This is a journalistic treatment that provides some synthesis to others' work. It is worth a read.

"We are not as strong... as we think we are..."

That powerful line from an old Rich Mullins song comes to mind as I think about evangelicalism in America today, especially after having read a new book by Christine Wicker: The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church (2008, Harper One).

Is evangelicalism dying? Christine Wicker thinks so, and she says she has the statistics to prove it. Wicker starts off her book with a grim prognosis:

"Evangelical Christianity in America is dying. The great evangelical movements of today are not a vanguard. They are a remnant, unraveling at every edge. Look at it any way you like: Conversions. Baptisms. Membership. Retention. Participation. Giving. Attendance. Religious literacy. Effect on the culture. All are down and dropping. It's no secret." (ix)

What is so devastating about Wicker's book is the way she picks apart our inflated numbers so she can demonstrate the small size of the remnant truly committed to evangelical beliefs. She whittles down the official number of Southern Baptists (16 million) by focusing on church attendance . She then whittles down our number of baptisms by pointing to the frequent practice of "rebaptizing" those who have already been baptized in our own churches (ouch!). She whittles the number down even further by taking into account inflated church numbers caused by church hoppers.

Wicker demonstrates with statistics that "image is everything" when it comes to evangelicalism. The number of evangelicals in our country is astoundingly low. We're not 25% of the population. We're nowhere close. At best, we make up 3.7%. One of the purposes of Wicker's book is to "take back" the voice of the religious from evangelicals:

"The majority of American Christians have been so marginalized by public rhetoric and news coverage that they don't even know they are the overwhelming majority of Christians and that they are the Christians who actually represent American religious values, not the religious right." (55)

I wish I could say that Wicker's bias inclines her to overstate her case in order to make a point. But I can't. She's right. As she painfully takes us into the world of megachurches, evangelism initiatives, house churches and the religious right, she ably demonstrates that evangelical power is crumbling.

At times throughout her book, Wicker (a cautious outsider who still considers herself linked to evangelicalism) provides insight that is spot-on. Take for example her reaction to Willow Creek's Reveal study, which concluded that one out of four people at the church was stalled or dissatisfied with their spirtual growth:

"Willow Creek pastors believe they have a solution. They must stop playing the role of parent and start playing the role of coah. Willow Creek leaders say mature Christians need to learn to feed themselves instead of relying on the church to feed them. There is only one problem with that solution. The majority of these dissatisfied Christians are already reading their Bibles, praying, giving, witnessing, and serving. They love Jesus and their lives are centered around him. They are able to feed themselves. It is their church that isn't able to feed them." (122)

Other times, Wicker's prescription is just plain wrong. She believes the underlying problem of the evangelical downfall is in our distinctiveness (165-6). The problem for Wicker is that evangelicals are hung up on distinctive beliefs that should be jettisoned for heightened popularity in contemporary society.

Of course, the mainline denominations who, over a century ago, took the advice Wicker espouses now have church buildings that are emptier than our own. No... our problem is not that we are too different; it's that we are not different enough. It is our lack of distinctiveness that has led to this crisis.

But regardless of some of Wicker's faulty prescriptions, her descriptions of an inflated evangelical bubble are painfully accurate. That's why church leaders need to read The Fall of the Evangelical Nation. We need a good dose of realism that cuts through all the hype of evangelical power and prestige. Rich Mullins was right. We're not as strong as we think we are.

As an evangelical leader myself, reading Wicker's book was not an exercise in edification. But it is a cold dose of reality, and although I don't believe all her claims, I think the thrust of what she says must be heard. She begins with her thesis:

Evangelical Christianity in America is dying. The great evangelical movements of today are not a vanguard. They are a remnant, unraveling at every edge. Look at it any way you like: Conversions. Baptisms. Membership. Retention. Participation. Giving. Attendance. Religious literacy. Effect on culture. All are down and dropping. It's no secret. Even as evangelical forces trumpet their purported political and social victories, insiders are anguishing about their great losses, fearing what the future holds. Nobody knows what to do about it. A lot of people can't believe it. No wonder. The idea that evangelicals are taking over America is one of the greatest publicity scams in history, a perfect coup accomplished by savvy politicos and religious leaders, who understand media weaknesses and exploit them brilliantly. ix

Could this be true? She lays out studies showing the problem is real, mostly from Christian, evangelical sources--Gordon Conwell, Barna, Josh McDowell, Southern Baptist Mission Board, and from some secular, but neutral sources like Pew and Gallup. She, herself, is not neutral. She is a lapsed Baptist who lost her faith in college, like 90% of evangelical children do, according to McDowell. She tries, but fails to conceal her glee over the situation. But I liked the fact that this was coming from a non-evangelical. Do we dare to read what the world thinks of us?

As a non-believer, Wicker is more interested in the issues raised by the Christian right. She portrays the common perception that evangelical churches are growing in America as sort of a plot, or scam, designed to give the right-wing political people more power at election time. I found this part uninteresting and somewhat implausible.

But while I questioned her interpretations at many points, I did not find her main thesis implausible. Our own studies show the same thing. For instance, "The evidence comes from Southern Baptists' own studies. Only 7 percent of members who've been in a Southern Baptist church five years of less are true converts." 62 We have done studies that show the same thing, and Baptists are generally better than other evangelical churches. In some of our studies of famous churches, the percent that report they met Christ in that church is as low as 3 percent.

She rolls out numerous studies in an interesting way, interspersed with stories of people from both favorable and hostile perspective. She concludes, "The truth behind all these numbers is that evangelicals are not converting and cannot convert non-Christian adult Americans, especially native-born white people, in significant numbers." 64 I believe that is as true as any statement in the book.

In a larger view she says, "A small and declining group of people has been portrayed as tremendously powerful and growing so rapidly that they might take over the country--when in fact that number of converts among this group is down and dropping. They are rarely able to convert and adult, middle-class American. Their share of the population is not 25 percent, but at most 7 percent of the country and falling. All these numbers come from the churches themselves." 67

What about the reports that 30 or even 40% of Americans are evangelicals? She de-bunks that myth using work again from evangelical sources, including Barna who made that figure popular. His real test for actual believers of a simple list of 9 basic truths shows that the real number of those who believe the Bible at a level that could be considered evangelical is only 7% of the population. Even this crew is suspect. The rest of the so-called 'born-again' Christians in America don't even know what it means. Wicker observes, "The other larger group [the rest of the 40%] comprised evangelicals who were born again but didn't accept the great majority of the most basic religious tenets that evangelicals are "supposed" to live by. 86 I've known this for years. There's no way most of the people Barna refers to as born-again are true Christians.

As I argue in my recent book dealing with Satan (Satan and His Kingdom: What the Bible Says and How It Matters to You), why would the church ever consider facing the pain of change when they believe they're already on the winning track? At pastors' forums I've attended, most Christian leaders believe we are in the midst of a revival in America. Unfortunately, as Wicker proves, nothing could be further from the truth. Unless evangelicals are prepared to face the truth about ourselves, we will be unwilling to think outside the box in a way that will do any good.
-Dennis McCallum, author Organic Disciplemaking: Mentoring Others Into Spiritual Maturity And Leadership

The movie The Bucket List is a moving tale about two people who meet in the hospital, both having been diagnosed shortly before with terminal cancer, and given 6 months to maybe a year to live. I happened to watch the movie at just about the same time as I read and finished Christine Wicker's book The Fall of the Evangelical Nation (New York: HarperOne, 2008). Since her book suggests that Evangelicalism in America is also a terminal case, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the movie and the book together. Indeed, since the very notion of a "bucket list" is to consider what you'd most want to do before you "kick the bucket", it seems that it might be appropriate for Evangelicalism to start working on its own "bucket list".

Evangelicalism has, of course, always placed an awareness of mortality quite central to its message. Indeed, the challenge "If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?" is a staple of Evangelical preaching. But that is a matter of individual mortality. What should the Evangelical movement in the fundamentalist form it has taken throughout much of the twentieth century do in the face of the possible death of the movement? Is it confident that it will be viewed by God in a way that merits a "Well done, good and faithful servant"? Will it be remembered by future generations of humans as a blessing or a blight on human history? Of course, Evangelicals have become well trained at ignoring popular opinion, and that is at once a great strength (since the majority is often wrong) and a great weakness (inability to hear criticism has certainly been known to contibute to an early demise).

Wicker's book is about the fact that Evangelical Fundamentalists or "the Religious Right" are not as numerous, and are not doing nearly as well as their publicity would have us believe. Wicker's investigations led her to learn from the statistics and spokespeople of various denominations that their numbers were inflated. While some claimed as many as one in four Americans was an Evangelical, it turned out that double counting, counting those coming in but not taking notice of departures, "sheep shuffling" and other factors suggest that those who actually hold a bare minimum of fundamentalist religious beliefs are perhaps 7% of Americans, and a quarter of the numbers claimed by and perhaps in some way associated with Evangelical churches. And in terms of their moral behavior, there are few statistical differences between Evangelicals and others, and that seems to have been the case as long as statistics have been kept. What that means is that Evangelicals have made claims to be different, to be upright in a way that the rest of society is not, that do not correspond to reality (pp.80-82). When a major "conservative" figure is caught in hypocrisy, we should not be surprised. What is remarkable is that, when so many have been caught, the myth of difference and the facades that often hinder rather than help it continue.

Among the shocking suggestions in Wicker's book is that moderate and progressive Evangelicals outnumber the right wing by 1% (p.54). That means that if the moderates and liberals can find their voice and the courage to use it, fundamentalists could lose their hold over most denominations! Evangelicals are often thought of as the fastest growing religious group in the U.S. In fact, they are only growing compared to mainline denominations (newer denominations normally do better than older ones), and are not keeping up with the rate of population growth. The category that is really growing is that of non-believers (p.53). But it should also be noted that those leaving conservative Evangelical churches are in many cases doing so for profoundly spiritual reasons, because they are persuaded that God is not as depicted by fundamentalists (pp.125-126).

How is it, then, that there are such loud and indeed powerful voices for fundamentalism? Part of it is that being loud and talking tough can do much to counter being outnumbered. Of course, in the schoolyard we call that bullying. Part of the story is that fundamentalists are so good at making others feel like they ought to believe and live as they do (or claim to, in the case of the live part). But part of it is the power of religious experience and of a grand narrative that claims to make sense of it all. As Wicker writes, "Hardly anything is more important to human identity than the stories we tell about life and about ourselves...Without identity humans are lost...People will starve to death without lifting a finger against those who have food but will murder over an event that happened one hundred years ago" (p.155).

What makes Wicker's book so powerful is that she tells the stories of fundamentalist Evangelicals sympathetically even though she is an ex-Evangelical herself. On the one hand, she notes that the power of Evangelicalism seems to be available without the doctrine: the Twelve-Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous discovered that surrender to a Higher Power works even if the notion of that Higher Power is vague, or is clear but different from the Christian one. If the Apostle Paul's argument about the Gentile Christians is anything to build on, we could ask "Does God transform your lives because you accept fundamentalist beliefs, or because you surrender to a higher power?" Where might such a line of reasoning take us?

Wicker also appreciates the role of Evangelical beliefs and practices in her own life (pp.202-203). Prayer and seeing God's hand in things enabled her to find "blessings" where she might not have looked hard enough to see them had she not had an Evangelical worldview. So perhaps the question Evangelicalism needs to ask itself is, if we can have the power of counting our blessings without the dogma that repels and divides, just what reason is there to cling to the dogma? Thankfully, significant numbers of Evangelicals as well as other strands of Christianity seem to be asking just such questions.

This brings me back to The Bucket List. Carter (one of the two main characters) is clearly a Christian, as is his family. He is faithful to his wife, not because he feels obligated by a watching eye from heaven but because he is loyal. He talks about God as creator and about afterlife, but includes Egyptian beliefs in the discussion of the latter, and doesn't claim to know "where the river goes" as it flows beyond this life. He doesn't call for his new friend Edward, who is bitter and alone to say a sinner's prayer in order to be sure he'll get to heaven. He challenges him to find the joy in his life.

This is the message and an expression of the faith of most Christians, if Wicker's book is anything to judge by. In a sense, this movie is "evangelistic", but for that non-dogmatic perspective that emphasizes not dogma but love, family, relationship, compassion, loyalty, and other things that are not the sole property of Christians, and which fundamentalist dogma is sometimes even a hindrance to.

The movie's challenge is that we all, at some point in our life, might make a "bucket list", a list of things we'd like to do before we die, that focuses on things or places, on achievements or accomplishments. But when actually confronted with death as an actual, imminent and inevitable reality, for most of us it all comes down to people. The happiest people are those who realize this before they have six months to live and know it. But for many people, what they pursue are things to distract from their lack of true joy.

That's the message of Christianity, when you take away the things that we cannot really be certain about and the things that people disagree about. And it would make sense to put proclaiming that message high on Evangelicalism's bucket list. If we do, then the various movements and offshoots that are arising out of and in reaction to fundamentalist forms of Evangelicalism may look back on its legacy and remember it fondly, even though they would not resurrect it even if they could. It is too late to salvage Evangelicalism's reputation to that extent (Wicker notes on p.143 that Evangelicals rank just above prostitutes in how outsiders esteem them). But as The Bucket List suggests at one point, perhaps the measure of a life, and of a movement, is to be found in those who measure themselves by us.

There are plenty of people out there who, to echo the words of Jesus, Evangelicalism has made into "every bit as much a son of perdition as ourselves". But as Edward Cole found, it is not too late to discover what really matters, even at the end. So what should Evangelicalism (and the Protestant mainline, for that matter) put on its "bucket list"? What would you put on yours?

James McGrath, author of The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith. [This review originally appeared on the Exploring Our Matrix blog]

I must give this book five stars, not because I find in it orthodox, spiritual guidance, but because Christine has done an outstanding job of research and clear presentation. While I am not a fan of a few of her endorsers, I am of others. I will join that chorus as well, but in the context of what I present below.

I would break the book into three parts. The first part describes the ethos of many evangelical churches. The second part is her explanation of how a 21st century secular person sees these evangelical people and the strange rules and perspectives that are not only strange to them, but irrelevant to them. The third section of the book is her continued personal disclosure of where she goes with this information.

The first two sections of this book are simply outstanding. I, too, grew up in the Southern Baptist world in the southwest. Her detailed imagery of the operations, lifestyles, church cultures, and especially the motivations she describes brought cold chills down my arm. She expressed these details with unparalled congruency with my own experiences. I believe that anyone reading this section of the book would have a superb grasp of what it is like in that world. She chronicles many stories of people's lives who have been transformed by their faith in God through Jesus Christ and connection with evangelical communities that are loving and reaching out to help others at their point of need. She has no tone of mockery and never questions the sincerity or integrity of the persons about whom she is reporting.

The second section is equally well researched and written in so far as it addresses the widespread secular understanding of truth. She explains the way of thinking of millions of Americans, sadly, including many people in America that consider themselves "spiritual" but not necessarily "Christian." The reason I think this is important is that I don't think many passionate evangelical church pastors or church attenders have a clue about this nearly universal way of thinking - without any need for God in their lives. If one does not understand the culture, they cannot connect with the people who are of that culture. What I felt was lacking in this section of the book was a critical assessment of the weakness in this perspective. This might be somewhat beyond the scope of what she wanted to cover, yet she seems to ultimately embrace most (but certainly not all) of this point of view. "Truth became provable, a verifiable proposition, not a tablet of rules, not a private vision, not a dream, not a proclamation from someone in power." (p. 153) She does not challenge the assertion that truth can be proven through reason and science and instead pits faith against reason. Completely absent are the historic facts that the founders of modern science were most typically committed Christians who saw science as the discovery process of God's handiwork. Certainly Kepler and Newton would have felt strongly this way. Also absent were the recounting that significant Christian teachers and leaders were also greatly educated about science. Isaac Watts not only was a prolific hymn writer and prominent London Congregational preacher but also published many treatises on mathematics and science. John Wesley did countless experiments in science as well. It would be helpful to have this balance included rather than simply accept that an absence of faith meant one now must look to the physical and psychological sciences for truth.

In the third section of the book Wicker presents a very candid view of how she has rejected much of her evangelical upbringing, yet she remains a deist. I realize that Wicker is telling her own story at the end of the book and I cannot fault her for that. She even gives credit to those whose stories are different from hers, such as those who maintain their Christian faith tradition.

I believe this would make a thinking Christian come to understand how educated non-believers discern truth and morality. It does not speak in theological truths, rather it describes the culture of the transformational processes she observes. As a Christian, I trust that this book will raise many important questions, whose answers must be find elsewhere. I believe that without the best informed questions, we do not advance our learning as we seek the answers.

The Fall of the Evangelical Nation is a quick read, really an extended magazine feature padded out with a few too many anecdotes in order to sell a book. It's certainly not worth the retail hardcover price. The author's major findings regarding church membership and sect affiliation have by now been revealed in a number of reviews since the book was first published in 2008. Research since then (from organizations such as the Barna Group and the Pew Research Center) has confirmed Wicker's conclusions, that the evangelical church is in decline and its biggest enemy is itself. Americans now think of evangelicals as some of the country's most intolerant and mean-spirited citizens.

Besides her numbers, Wicker offers a few ideas to explain the declining popularity of literal interpretations of sacred documents and their attendant unexamined lifestyles, including the success of 12-step addiction programs, a concern with authenticity, the widespread use of the internet, and the feminization of the child rearing process. Yahweh/Jesus was replaced with a dogma-free Higher Power, people grew anxious about having their own experience (rather than one ready made by the church), those with doubts were able to meet like-minded doubters and access heretical ideas, and threat and punishment was replaced with reasoning and negotiation. "Parents are the first gods in our lives. When they say ... `You're right. It is more complicated,' in response to our scrutiny of the rules, it's impossible to respect or love a God who would do less."

#

I found this book to be interesting in that it includes plenty of statistics about the Christian, or especially, Evangelical churches in the U.S., with some numbers being estimated out of necessity. A part of me was a bit relieved to learn that the political influence of this group is probably overestimated by many, but it seemed sad to me in a way. I think this book would be worth reading if you want a good overview of the state of this particular segment of our society.

Like Wicker, I grew up as an evangelical. And like her, I largely jettisoned the faith when I went to college. But unlike Wicker, I have begrudgingly made my way back to evangelicalism, despite having a complete disconnect with the prevailing social culture of the movement.

Indeed, mainstream evangelicalism has lost the ability to reach out to educated, white, urban Americans. Wicker chronicles this, and her analysis is seeringly accurate. In fact, it's probably fair to say that evangelicalism has just given up on reaching out to educated, white, urban Americans. Wicker is generally glad about this.

But because Wicker is not a Christian, she doesn't grieve over this failure. In the late 70s, evangelicalism melded the message of the Cross with right-wing social populism. Consequently, the movement grew in numbers as it benefited from the social uncertainties brought on by the sexual revolution, urban rioting, and the Vietnam War. But few white urban professionals sense these same social anxieties in the ways that our parents did. For us, 80-hour work weeks leave no time for sex, our "gentrified" urban areas are largely free of violent crime, and we view Vietnam as a cool place to vacation in mid-winter. In short, we feel none of the social anxiety that mainstream populist evangelicalism sought to assuage.

I agree with Wicker that the moral dialogue of mainstream evangelicalism is losing its grip on the power centers of our nation. This is because evangelicals have found no way to discuss Biblical ethics without resorting to the social populism that served the movement well in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The danger, however, is that we may lose the substance of Biblical ethics because evangelicals refuse to recast that message into anything but a populist narrative.

Like Wicker, I look forward to the day when I no longer need to listen to self-important preachers foist their moral wares on me like carnival barkers (or like the activists who congregate near subway exits). But I fear that the substance of Christian moral dialogue will fade as well. And I'm not sure that that's an entirely beneficial result.

The social populism that had once been evangelicalism's boon has now become its bane. In many ways, it will be left up to the next generation to create a new social narrative. Sadly, it looks as though populist evangelicalism will not go down quietly; the folks in Colorado Springs will kick and scream their way into social and political oblivion.

Again, another brilliantly written book by Christine Wicker. Both sides are fairly depicted, and an amazing and informative read.