Writing in The Boston Globe, the eminent historian of religion Harvey Cox sees the “new” evangelical powers
such as Rick Warren as much like the old, and he thinks that’s a good thing. In Cox’ reading, Billy Graham was a nice fella, Falwell isn’t, but now American evangelicalism is reasonable again.

Well, that’s the official story, anyway. Leaving Warren aside, though, I have to question the drive by an alliance of liberal Christians and journalists looking for a simple story to recast the past as the good times before things got nasty. This is particularly galling with regard to Graham. Cox, like every liberal eager to discredit the current manifestation of Christian authoritarianism as an aberration, recycles the canard of Graham as a crusader for racial equality.

Indeed, Graham integrated his rallies. But here’s a piece from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July, 1965, titled “Martial Law in U.S.”, in which Graham argues that it may be necessary — in order to quiet civil rights activists. “Demonstrations are getting out of hand,” he says. “There has got to be a halt somwhere.” In another article from the period, “‘Way of Life’ Imperiled: Graham Warns of Dangers,” our model of decency is reported to have grown angry and increasingly loud as he preached that the main problem was street crime and that its solution lay not in addressing poverty or racism, but the sin of those who’d violate law and order.

Graham never mellowed, he simply moved with the times. From the beginning of his career to its (nearing) end, Graham showed an uncanny ability to calculate the angles. Strict fundamentalists hated him for it — Graham bent principles easily in order to stay close to power. But stay close to power he did.

As do a new generation of Christian conservative leaders who look at Pat Robertson in his dotage and Jim Dobson in his proud fury and D. James Kennedy in his absurd, shellacked hair dye, and decide to plot a more subtle course. That means theological and political adjustments, But liberals and newspaper reporters shouldn’t mistake those adjustments for a fundamentally different relationship of Christian conservatism to power; indeed, it remains constant. National preachers do what they need to do to stay close to the muscle in American life. There are no “good” preachers and “bad” preachers at that level, there are only power preachers, some smarter than others.

The multitude of believers — that’s another story. Sadly, one the press doesn’t seem as interested in. Are there real changes in the ideology of the many mini-movements that comprise the Christian Right? Are ordinary believers seriously reconsidering their political commitments? Are they re-visiting scripture and changing their minds about what it means?

Those are questions we can’t answer by following the fads of power preacher popularity.

–Jeff Sharlet

UPDATE: Mark I. Pinsky of The Orlando Sentinel writes to The Revealer in response:

As I will argue next month in my new book, A Jew Among the Evangelicals, something IS going on within the evangelical movement. True, it’s not what the wishful thinkers and bloggers on the religious left say (and hope) it is.

It’s something more subtle, as much a matter of tone and generational cohort seeking leadership as it is a matter of ideology — or theology.

If you look closely at the recent presidential election at the Southern Baptist Convention, and the statements following, you see and hear a slightly younger, slightly more socially conscious and slightly less strident brand of Sunbelt conservatism emerging. It is less confrontational and less fixated on abortion and gay marriage, and more amenable to coalitions in support of environmentalism (“creation care”)and help for the poor. Still, it’s a matter of degree, rather than a fundamental or seismic shift.

And it’s not just at the national leadership level. Take, for example, the Rev. Joel Hunter, of Northland, a Central Florida mega-church that draws 12,000 on a weekend. He has published a new book, “Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won’t Fly With Most Conservative Christians.”

At least that’s what it looks like from the grass roots in the Sunbelt suburbs.