The Evangelical Evolution

Christianism may be waning. Christianity cannot be trashed so easily. A reader writes:

I grew up in a typical evangelical household, and now attend Gordon College in Massachusetts, a non denominational evangelical college. As sort of a political news junkie, I read your blog regularly, and I frequently appreciate your analysis on the Christian Right, and their pull (albeit a but waning) on the political climate. Here at Gordon, I've met scores of students who grew up just like me, who were taught to exclude and condemn homosexuals, democrats, hippies, liberals, "secularists", etc. Gladly, I've found that most of my peers, while at school and as they grow in both spiritual and intellectual faculties, question the way they were brought up, the way they were taught to think. Many, like me, wonder why we were sold a "brand" of Christianity, complete with books, ideologies, and political parties.

I began to search for something deeper, and more meaningful, and found that the typical evangelical was not presenting his/her faith in a way that Jesus would be pleased with. The thing is, as Christians, were called to love, to love hippies, liberals, conservatives, homosexuals, and crack addicts as we love ourselves. Deriving from this framework of unconditional love, a new breed of political liberal evangelicals is certainly developing. Concern for God's creation, social justice, and peace have been issues that "new" evangelicals have championed. Gay marriage, abortion, and hawkish war policies, seem to drift from Christ's central message of unconditional love. Many evangelicals fear being "secular". But more of us believe that being "secular" in this sense is embracing consumerism and assuming that America is the greatest nation on earth. There is a change coming, and quietly, there are actually a sizeable number of Obama supporters here.