Christianity Today‘s Philip Yancey considers “The Lure of Theocracy.” He’s against it — we think. Yancey, considered a moderate evangelical, warns evangelicals against adopting the “fundamentalism” of Islam — an ironic gesture, given that “fundamentalist” is a term coined by evangelical protestants for themselves in 1920. For that matter, nearly every step of Yancey’s brief history of Christendom is inaccurate, but we’ll overlook that for the novelty of Christianity Today acknowledging that there are deeply authoritarian strains in the evangelical movement, believers slouching toward theocracy. For too long, the movement and its secular apologists have so vigorously fought against caricature by the know-nothing contingent within liberalism that they’ve turned a blind eye to overwhelming evidence of the growing enthusiasm for faith-as-muscle within the movement.

Hell, there are authoritarian strains in Yancey’s column — the loathing for the “decadence” of non-believers that has historically preceded totalitarian purges, not to mention a caricature of Islam that borders on bigotry even as it celebrates a few “good Muslims.” Yancey demonstrates his moderation by citing Salman Rushdie’s rather blunt notion that “the true battle of history is fought between the epicure and the Puritan”; then he demonstrates his fundamentalist disdain for nuance by suggesting that the ACLU, an intellectually purist outfit by definition, is representative of the “epicure.” I imagine Rushdie had something a bit sexier in mind.

–Jeff Sharlet