Misunderstood Evangelicals

In the New York Times Book Review, Books and Culture editor John Wilson writes about the gross mischaracterization of evangelicals in fiction and non-fiction. Excerpt:

In their fictional guise, evangelicals and their kin -- fundamentalists, Pentecostals and all manner of weird cultists calling fervently on the name of Jesus -- are . . . drawn in broadly satiric strokes. Charmless, ignorant, homophobic and either brazenly hypocritical or obnoxiously sincere, they quote scripture unctuously and have bad sex.

. . .

Ever since Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority began making headlines in the 1980s, it has served the purposes of certain conservative activists and their ideological foes to exaggerate the influence they wield among evangelical Christians. In fact, it is both a strength and a weakness of evangelicalism that the “movement” lacks a center. Yes, a significant majority of evangelicals voted for George W. Bush. Big deal. At the moment, it appears unlikely that a Republican of any stripe will win the White House in 2008, though the Democrats may yet find a way to squander their advantage. So much for theocracy.

. . .

Many years ago, when I was teaching English at a large state university, I sat through part of a faculty debate on the problem posed by evangelical groups who were “proselytizing.” These professors, you understand, were fully committed to free speech — they’d swear to it, so help me Mario Savio — but they were concerned about the vulnerability of impressionable young minds to the seductive wiles of Campus Crusade for Christ, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and other such evangelical organizations.

I left while the hand-ringing was still in progress and walked across the campus, passing a row of tables. . . . The university was a marketplace of ideas. Wherever I turned, someone was trying to persuade me to do something. A young woman in a fetching tank top wanted me to join the army of the credit-card indebted. (I had already enlisted and re-upped, foolishly, at great eventual cost before I was discharged.) A couple of beefy guys wanted me to drink beer and do whatever else fraternity guys do. But some ideas are more threatening than others. So the evangelicals were a problem.

Evidently we still are.