Elf Sternberg

I was raised evangelical and I remember, in the 1970s, there were active controversies over divorce, out-of-wedlock births, and the proper role of women -- you know, was feminism okay, or was birth control okay. On these topics, my parents were squarely on the liberal side -- they didn't exactly approve of divorce or out-of-wedlock births, but they had friends who had experienced these things and didn't want to judge them or shut them out of the church community.

The controversies over abortion and homosexuality came about later, during the 80s, after the "Moral Marjority" lobbying group was an active force. I think that changed their nature, because they played out primarily as political struggles -- externally focused -- rather than doctrinal struggles -- internally focused.

When I was a kid, there seemed to be a recognition that people could go to the same church without being in agreement on all doctrinal controversies, without having the same politics, without having the same general lifestyle choices. But that started to change in the 80s. To be an evangelical was to be a Republican and to have a certain kind of life. There was this all-encompassing aspect to it. You went to church and had your opinion on everything from elections to television programs handed to you on a pamphlet put out by Jerry Falwell or James Dobson.

During the 80s, it seemed like really peculiar things were virtually mandated by membership in the evangelical church -- you could spot which students went to CCF based on how they dressed and wore their hair.

For a while, it seemed like the evangelical church and the Republican party could marry their fortunes together, gaining power without losing any membership. The church lost me, but I thought at the time I was an outlier. Turns out I was a harbinger.

I think what happened was this: evangelical culture kept getting more and more right wing, and more and more politically partisan, even as the larger culture changed. So eventually they did start to lose people. They lost the MOST liberal people, like me, first, but then they started to lose moderates. My parents liked Reagan and thought Bush senior was okay -- but they didn't like Bush junior at ALL and started to feel a lot of alienation and resentment when their church made being a Bush supporter a virtual requirement for membership. When it came to things like same-sex marriage, they had a similar reaction -- it seemed shocking to them when they first contemplated it, but they gradually got used to the idea. They changed. The church didn't. Or, rather, it did change -- but it kept heading farther and farther in the same direction.

So, what you have now is an evangelical sub-culture whose identity -- whose sense of meaning and purpose -- is almost wholly defined by right wing cultural conservatism. They are dying on that hill for existential reasons.