c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) A new crop of books features a small but vocal group of evangelicals with a warning for members of their faith: Unless they sever political alliances and forgo blind adherence on hot-button issues, they run the risk of displeasing God and undermining their Christian convictions.

The authors, who range from pastors to professors, theologians to laymen, have two things in common _ all are evangelicals, and they all say close ties to any political party undermine their God-ordained mission to live out a gospel of brotherly love and compassion.

The subtitle of one book, “The Myth of a Christian Nation” by Minnesota megachurch pastor Gregory Boyd, sums up the general thesis of the others: “How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.”

While unease with Christianity’s coziness with politics is not new, what’s unusual is the public nature of the criticism. No longer are grievances aired privately between evangelical church and ministry leaders. The fact that so many prominent evangelicals are speaking out, observers say, signals a budding backlash against politics within the movement.

“It’s a symptom of what I like to call the evangelical identity crisis,” said Lynn Garrett, senior editor in religion for Publishers Weekly, a trade magazine.

“As our political leaders (who) identify themselves as evangelical have become more hard-right, that has turned off evangelicals who do not share those viewpoints. They are speaking up and saying, `This is not us. Don’t tar us with the same brush.”’

That feeling brought Randall Balmer, a professor of American religion at Barnard College, to write the opening of “Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical’s Lament.” “I write,” he says in the book’s opening pages, “as a jilted lover.”

“The evangelical faith that nurtured me as a child and sustains me as an adult has been hijacked by right-wing zealots who have distorted the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he continues, “defaulted on the noble legacy of 19th century evangelical activism, and failed to appreciate the genius of the First Amendment.”

Balmer recently spoke in North Carolina, a state speckled with evangelical churches, where he said he drew about 200 people. He said e-mail response to his book has been overwhelmingly positive, which he credits to a rising dissatisfaction with the Bush administration.

“I think more evangelicals are waking up to the fact that this is an administration that claims to speak for people of faith, and yet its policies are morally bankrupt,” he said, citing the war in Iraq, the practice of torture and the televised stranding of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. “I think evangelicals are beginning to realize they have been misled, at least in some degree.”

A May poll taken by the Pew Research Center suggests Balmer may be right.

While President Bush still has the support of a majority of white evangelicals, a smaller number _ 55 percent _ now say they approve of his performance. Two years ago, that number was 72 percent.

Jeffrey Sheler, a long-time religion journalist who surveys American evangelicals in his new book, “Believers,” said the discontent extends beyond the current administration to religious figures who claim to speak for the nation’s 60 million evangelicals on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research and the First Amendment.

“A growing number of evangelicals are tired of the way they have been portrayed (in the news media) and the way they see their faith, in their opinion, being hijacked by a small number of highly visible political activists,” Sheler said.

“We are getting close to another election and they do not want to once again see a few voices stand up and succeed in representing themselves as the spokesmen for 60 million evangelical Americans.”

That is one of the factors that prompted Richard Kyle to write a chapter sardonically titled “God is a Conservative” in his new book, “Evangelicalism: An Americanized Christianity.” Kyle, an evangelical Mennonite and a professor at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan., writes that evangelical media personalities like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham and James Dobson would have Americans believe God is a Republican.

“Every time Pat Robertson opens his mouth I am embarrassed,” Kyle said. “I wanted to distance myself from some of his comments.”

The authors, however, are realistic about the battle they wage.

“Yes, we are seeing more books critical of the marriage of conservative politics and religion,” Kyle said. “But the popularizers, the TV preachers, are carrying the day. Their books are selling in the millions. I even get e-mails that say that because I disagree with Falwell, I must be wrong.”

George G. Hunter III is a professor of church growth and evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. In his new book, “Christian, Evangelical & … Democrat?”, he writes that evangelicals need not abandon politics outright _ but should not sacrifice their mission to the poor on the altar of political influence.

“My book advises evangelicals to be salt and light in both political parties and stop the pretense that evangelical Christianity, in its political expression, is only the Republican Party at prayer,” he said. “You can’t read the Scriptures out of that conclusion.”

“If we squander that just for the privilege of being included with the political powers,” he said, “we are not doing what God wants us to do.”

KRE/CM END WINSTON

Editors: To obtain photos and bookcovers for Boyd, Balmer, Sheler, Kyle and Hunter, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

Also see related story, RNS-EVANGEL-BOOKS, transmitted Sept. 21, for snapshots of books dealing with evangelicals and politics.