Why the secular creed should heed those who keep the faith

Liberal America’s contempt for its evangelical counterpart is proving dangerously divisive, writes Nicholas Kristof.

Claims that the news media form a vast liberal conspiracy strike me as utterly unconvincing, but there’s one area where accusations of institutional bias have merit: nearly all of us in the news business are completely out of touch with a group that includes 46 per cent of Americans.

That’s the proportion who described themselves in a Gallup poll in December as evangelical or born-again Christians. Evangelicals have moved from the fringe to the mainstream, and that is particularly evident in this Administration.

It’s impossible to understand President Bush without acknowledging the centrality of his faith. Indeed, there may be an element of messianic vision in the plan to invade Iraq and “remake” the Middle East.

Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago argues that America is now experiencing a fourth Great Awakening, like the religious revivals that have periodically swept the nation in the past 300 years. Yet offhand, I can’t think of a single evangelical working for a major news organisation.

Evangelicals are increasingly important in every aspect of US culture. Among the bestselling books in America is Tim LaHaye’s Christian Left Behind series about the apocalypse – about 50 million copies have been sold. One of America’s most prominent television personalities is Benny Hinn, watched in 190 countries but few of us have heard of him because he is an evangelist.

Bush has said that he doesn’t believe in evolution (he thinks the jury is still out). President Ronald Reagan felt the same way, and such views are typically American. A new Gallup poll shows that 48 per cent of Americans believe in creationism, and only 28 per cent in evolution (most of the rest aren’t sure or lean toward creationism). According to recent Gallup Tuesday Briefings, Americans are more than twice as likely to believe in the devil (68 per cent) as in evolution.

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