In Case of Financial Rupture, This Political Movement Will Be Unmanned

Timothy Egan writes about meeting evangelicals in Colorado who are leaning toward Obama. This doesn't shock me. I'm accused by some of my New York friends of understating the seriousness and the single-mindedness of the evangelical political movement. I don't think that's the case. I'm aware (and wary of) the strength of the religious-right movement in this country. It's just that I believe any group of 30 million or so people is big enough to be diverse, even if it's easier to turn them into one Borg-like entity.

Egan talks to Pastor Brady Boyd, the head of New Life Church, formerly led by Extremely Heterosexual Ted Haggard. Boyd says, "The financial crisis is point number one. . . . These attacks against the candidates are just irrelevant right now. Why are you all attacking one another when we're dying out here?"

Yes, how could a high-profile evangelical pastor ever understand why we're attacking each other? It's only the movement's modus operandi when the market is robust. This killed me:

Dobson is yesterday. Boyd is tomorrow, saying that the environment, the poor, and helping those in his church who've lost a job or a house are things that matter to his congregation.

Abortion? Homosexuals? Bill Ayers?

"To be focused on those things at a time when people are hurting would really be to the detriment of families," said Boyd.

It's nice to hear him say it, but how about taking out "at a time when people are hurting"? Because the logic of this would suggest that Boyd is admitting that exclusive focus on those issues is not good for people -- it's a divisive and useless luxury that the church indulges in when things are going well. Nice to have that cleared up.