October 9, 2011, here on slacktivist: David Barton is more influential than Jim Wallis
I could just pretend that David Barton, Tim LaHaye, Al Mohler and C. Peter Wagner are insignificant fringe figures who exercise no influence among American evangelicals. That way whenever someone asks me about their views I could reassure them that such people are of no consequence, that their influence is just being exaggerated as a scary story told by a conspiracy of liberal bloggers out to make the rest of us evangelicals look silly.
… But this doesn’t work either because this also is not true. David Barton, Bryan Fischer, Al Mohler and C. Peter Wagner are influential leaders, each with a large following. None of them represents all or even most of American evangelicalism, but each one is part of it — a significant part of it. This is undeniably true, so I just don’t understand what anyone thinks might be gained from trying to deny it.
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