An Evangelical Identity Crisis

For Christian conservatives, these were heady times. According to Cal Thomas, who worked as Falwell's spokesman in the early 1980s, the Moral Majority and similar groups registered between 4 million and 5 million new voters by 1981. Donations were pouring into the Moral Majority's coffers at the rate of about $1 million a month. And so the insiders were outsiders, and the outsiders were in.

Yet power corrupts. that's the message of "Blinded by Might," Thomas's 1999 mem-oir, with Ed Dobson, of their tenure with the Moral Majority. How does a group of people who have a religious and cultural identity as outsiders, who value service to others and believe in living as much as pos-sible like Jesus, sustain this identity when they not only have a seat at the table, but they own the seat--and a good part of the table?

The answer, according to Thomas, is that they don't. "Christians are humans, too," says Thomas, now a conservative columnist. "They like to be paid attention to; they like to have their picture taken with the president." In 1985 Thomas walked away from his job at the Moral Majority to focus on his own writing. Politics is a game of compromise, he says, faith isn't.

And yet many evangelicals are now part of the establishment they once ran against. George W. Bush credits Billy Graham with saving him from a life of drift and drink; the 43rd president has spoken of how Jesus can "change your heart." To keep lines of communication open after the 2000 election, the White House began making weekly calls to the evangelical community--an opportunity for Christians to air grievances and make demands. Land is frequently on those calls, as is Gary Bauer, president of the conservative group American Values. The shift in emphasis from issues of sexual morality to social justice does not mean evangelicals are ceding ground on sex; far from it. But there is clearly discomfort with the movement's apparent obsession with sins of the flesh.

Why is this change happening now? Chuck Colson, who founded the faith-based group Prison Fellowship after being incarcerated for his involvement in the Watergate scandal, says the evangelical movement has "matured." Christians, he says, have great access to the president, who is interested in a broad range of issues beyond the hot buttons of abortion and same-sex marriage. "I was the one who brought the sexual-trafficking issue to Bush personally," says Colson, clearly relishing his high-level access.

Over the past few months, though, certain visible Christians have expressed frustration and even anger with the Bush administration. In his new book, "Tempting Faith," David Kuo, who worked for more than two years in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, describes an administration more interested in public relations than programs. "It will be generations before evangelicals put so much faith in another president based simply on his religious convictions," he says. "Jesus needs to be about more than being precinct captain. Jesus' message of love is really the transcendent message I care about the most."