Rise of the Neo-Evangelical in American Politics

Leadership in the arts, business, medicine, politics and religion comes not from training at Harvard, Messiah College or Regent University, but from a keen sense of timing and mission.

Writer Hanna Rosin has just completed a book due out in
September on Patrick Henry College,
God's Harvard: A Christian
College on a Mission
to Save America.  She recently published an Op Ed piece in
the Washington Post on the rise of a
new generation of Evangelicals involved in politics.  Monica Goodling, the young Turk from Messiah College
and Regent University Law
School who played a key
role in the firing of a number of U.S. Attorneys, was showcased as
representative of this new generation.

Rosin's article raises many interesting questions.  If we are to take her position as
authoritative, we may need to create a category of political activism – "neo-evangelical."  Rosin points to the derisive
characterizations of Evangelicals by comic Bill Maher as the standard against
which this generation of "well-scrubbed, Harvard-like Christians" is publicly measured.
How relevant that is may be up for grabs.

My suspicion is that the media is just waking up.  The fact is that "well-scrubbed, Harvard-like
Christians" have always been in administrative positions in government, albeit
somewhat in the closet.

Having said that, however, there are several reactions to
the Rosin piece that are in order.

First, to run through the gauntlet of indoctrination
prevalent in fundamentalist Christian education requires an incredible facility
for bureaucratic survival and an ability to shut down, or at least
compartmentalize, critical thinking.  "Good
soldiers" might be an appropriate term.  Good
soldiers rarely make good generals.

Where Christian schools shine are the few instances of
classical education with a Christian distinctive rather than Christian
education with a classical distinctive. 

Messiah College and Regent University
would not, in my thinking, be institutions where classical education is
emphasized over indoctrination.  I would
leave room, however, for the very real possibility that I may well have, in the
characterization by Rosin of Pat Robertson, become irrelevant.

Secondly, while these "well-scrubbed, Harvard-like
Christians" may toe the party line (primarily Republican), there is a
Machiavellian streak in all of them that pays extreme homage to the will of
authority, even to the extent of sacrificing one's own principles. 

This Machiavellian streak derives from an overwhelming
need to preserve the "soul" of the institution.  Terms such as "Christian nation," Christian
school," "Christian company" and "Christian marriage" are
frequently employed. 

At the end of the day, the neo-evangelical is the product
of a system that honors no departure from the party line. While Robertson may
have been put on the shelf by neo-evangelicals, his personality and agenda was
very much alive in the education of Monica Goodling. To bow to his authority
for even a month requires a strong propensity toward group-think.

As for Harvard, inertia is a wonderful thing, but it is
not certain that Harvard has not, along with Pat Robertson, passed its zenith.  If the best one can offer in this uncertain
and dangerous world in which we live is either a Harvard degree or a Regent University
degree, we may be in deep trouble.

Leadership in the arts, business, medicine, politics and
religion emerges, not from training at Harvard, Messiah
College or Regent University,
but from a keen sense of timing and mission, a sense that made Pat Robertson a
legend in his own time and mind.

It would be well not to forget that Bill Gates jettisoned
college after one semester in order to respond to both timing and mission.

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and
"McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry