I'm really blessed as an evangelical Christian to have Bill Redeker at ABCNews.com to tell me that my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are "evolving."
The evangelical movement has long been considered a powerful political entity. An estimated 65 million Americans consider themselves conservative Christians. Their anti-gay, anti-abortion views are well known as is their support for mostly Republican political candidates.
But times are changing.
Now there are evangelicals speaking out on global warming and supporting adoption. Neither would have been endorsed only a few years ago.
Really? I must have missed the sermons all those years about how adoption is not Christ-like, despite the Bible using the adoption analogy to describe Christ's relationship with His Church.
And what about global warming? That's not really a concern germane to biblical ethics, although , yes, many evangelicals that happen to be conservative and Republican are likely to be skeptical of the theory of anthropocentric global warming.
Evangelical blogger Ted Olsen put it succinctly in a Christianity Today Liveblog post today (emphasis mine):
Whatever your stance on global warming and what the government should do about it, or really whatever your politics is, I think we can agree that "evolving" is incredibly loaded in this context. Yes, I get the intended humor and irony: Those crazy evangelicals that don't believe in evolution are evolving politically. Ha ha. But precisely because evolution suggests a change from a lower form to a higher form, the word in this context means "evangelicals are finally recognizing that they've been wrong in disagreeing with me."
CT readers will know that it's questionable to assert that evangelicals are changing their political beliefs, attitudes, and voting behavior. But even if that's your argument, say "change." That won't suggest that Republican evangelicals who oppose homosexual sex and don't make global warming a priority are a bunch of monkeys.
