"We must not confuse the Kingdom of God with our country. To say it another way: 'We should not wrap Christianity in our national flag.'

"None of this, however, changes the fact that the United States was founded upon a Christian consensus, nor that we today should bring Judeo-Christian principles into play in regard to government."

-Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1981), pp. 120-121.

When Francis Schaeffer died in 1984, American evangelical Christians had many reasons to be demoralized. The "born again" president whom conservative Christians had hoped for was a disappointment. Not only was Jimmy Carter a liberal, but he freely admitted his faults as a human being. The next political savior of the evangelicals, Ronald Reagan, did not seem as eager to mount an assault on the secular state as his theocratic supporters. What was the Christian right to do?

During the Carter-Reagan years, a politically aggressive group of Christians banded together: Their leaders were Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Cal Thomas and Phyllis Schlafly. They founded the Moral Majority and the Council for National Policy, the Concerned Women of America and the Eagle Forum. They helped Paul Weyrich form the Free Congress Foundation. With funding from the Coors and Scaife and other fortunes, they poured money into conservative Christian think tanks, in the process forging bonds with the embryonic Focus on the Family of James Dobson and the Family Research Council of Gary Bauer.

These groups grew restless during the years of George H. W. Bush, but during the "wicked" Clinton years, they were energized and organized into a formidable force; and today, their favored candidate occupies the White House.

So what is the next objective? According to the Discovery Institute, it is the "renewal of science and culture." The Discovery Institute is a powerful new force of the Christian Right, with ties to American Spectator owner George Gilder and Charles Colson of Watergate and prison ministry fame. The Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), a Discovery organization, is assailing the teaching of evolution and modern cosmology, pressing instead for the teaching of "Intelligent Design Theory" (IDT). On May 10, 2000, a presentation by IDT proponents was made to select members of the U.S. Congress. Arguments for the teaching of "creation science" alongside "secular science" have been made by a Senate Majority leader and the Majority Whip of the House of Representatives.

As the administration of George W. Bush promotes "faith-based" services without empirical evidence, what will be next? Will we witness "faith-based" sociology, psychology, astronomy, biology and law?

Will the 21st century bring a "Second Reformation?"

--Richard Garrard