Hanna Rosin, author of God's Harvard, wonders what's going on with the new(ish) power of evangelicals:
Here is something that's perfectly emblematic to me about this confused moment in evangelical, fundamentalist, whatever you want to call it involvement in politics: Bob Jones III's endorsement of Mitt Romney. Romney, as we all know, is a Mormon, and we can all imagine what the talk is around the Jones dinner table about the Mormon creed. Hillary Clinton is a lifelong Methodist who has tried hard to make peace with religious America but is only getting cold hard stares back.
Is this the temper of the new fundamentalist avant-garde, still freely offensive about Mormonism but more practical minded in their political alliances? ("As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism," Jones said. "But I'm not voting for a preacher. I'm voting for a president. It boils down to who can best represent conservative American beliefs, not religious beliefs.") Does this represent progress and political sophistication? Or ever more backwardness? Is this yet more evidence of how Christians have sold their soul for a seat at the table? At the very least, I have to say there is something unseemly, un-Christian one might even say, at the community's salivating over the prospects of She-Devil's nomination.
Un-Christian?? Yep: hence the ist.