Marginalizing Evangelicals

I've been listening to a lot of NPR lately. I guess I'd just about heard everything the conservative commentators had to say on talk radio and I decided to see the view from the other side. Although NPR tries to play the objective news outlet the editorial commentaries are almost completely one-sided. I also tuned in Air America radio online and started reading more blogs.

There is a unified refrain coming these liberal voices, "Stop the evangelicals!" It's hard to attack Christianity when almost 80% of the general population would label themselves as such. If you're going to bully somebody it's certainly not going to be someone bigger than you. Here's where the evangelicals come in, they only make up 7% of the overall population in the US.

Evangelicals are being to set up as the religious lunatic fringe in America. The label is frequently associated with abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph. Evangelicals apparently have a lot of political power too. It seems that they are almost solely responsible for the Republican majority in Congress and two terms of the Bush presidency. If they get their way they will take over the Supreme Court through Bush's nominations and complete the transition of the US from representative democracy to theocracy. I recently read a blogger refer to "Talibaptists" and that pretty well thumbnails what the socio-political left wants you to believe about evangelicals. To them this 7% of the population is the American equivalent of Islamic Jihadists. Oh, and they're intolerant rednecks too! There is a greater concentration of evangelicals in the South. And they just won't get out of the way and let gay people get married.

That's how evangelicals are being presented in the media. Here's what you really need to know.

Evangelicals are deeply spiritual people. 9 out of 10 of them study their Bible through the week. They know what the Bible says because they read it and, here's the kicker, they believe it.

their faith is very important in their life today; contending that they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; stating that Satan exists; maintaining that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not by being good or doing good deeds; asserting that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; saying that the Bible is totally accurate in all it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today.

That is the so-called "extremist" world view that some liberals claim is equivalent to that of the people who flew airplanes into the twin towers. So when you listen to the news and you hear "evangelicals" and "Christians" referred to as if they were two separate and distinct groups just ask yourself, "are they really?" Or, is the term "Evangelical" just a straw man caricature that liberals can blame for the failure of their own ideology?

Statistics on Christianity in America: The Barna Group