While I have chosen to not make politics something withing my blog programming, I will confess that I am a news junkie of sorts, which currently has me with a perpetual head scratching when it comes to the evangelical world of politics. So check it. Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy have died within the past year, and the President of the National Association of Evangelicals has been outed with a homosexual relationship which he had been having for years. Consequently, the two dominating influences in the evangelical world of politics right now are a shrink and a Pentecostal preacher who can leg press 2000 pounds. As an evangelical, does this not leave you scratching your head, wondering whatever happened to men like Harold J. Ockenga, Carl F.H. Henry, and Francis Schaeffer?
One does not have to speculate long as to why the Jim Wallis’, Rick Warren’s, Brian McLaren’s, and Jimmy Carter’s, out there are gaining so much momentum in the younger generation of evangelicals. My hunch is that many evangelicals are finding themselves wondering how in the world we got to the place where so many evangelical politicos are so little like us.
Maybe I am not the only one scratching my head after all.
Tim
I work in politics (Congress, if you call that political) and I could not agree with you more.
I strive for individuals to read and listen to, whom can make an evangelical political position, not sound like a science fiction moralism, but common sense logical process.
I have too many other thoughts to take up space on your comments, but I just wanted to say: great words!
Re: “the two dominating influences in the evangelical world of politics right now”
Sir,
I think that you may have made the potentially fatal error of forgetting about CHUCK NORRIS, who recently endorsed Mike Huckabee.
Evangelicalism was good while it lasted, but I think the celebritization of ministers has taken an ideological toll on the movement. While the message was well spoken, too many have instead clung to the speakers rather than the message. Now, any good speaker is glorified no matter what he preaches and too many who bear truth well are marginalized if they can’t command the attention of mass-multimedia-consumers.