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God On Their Side
...He's following the megachurch formula, anchoring his down-to-earth preaching in the Bible's most hopeful passages and avoiding shame or hellfire. Thousands come to listen, excited by global missions and social outreach and eager for the 24/7 programming that addresses their personal problems, giving them firm rules and Biblical certainty without ever, ever judging them.

"We're literally coming to the gas tank and getting filled up," Pastor Jeff calls out, and a ripple of assent goes through the room. "So how do we obtain help from God for our needs?" He jokes that he made 35 altar calls before he felt secure about his own salvation. "Now I know His ear is inclined to my prayer. How do I know that? Because I found it in Scripture! You pray for a good surgery and there's a good surgery – is that a miracle? Of course it is! Because it could have been a bad surgery."

On the wall behind him, where other worshippers might hang a crucifix or rest the Torah, huge brass letters spell out "HONOR GOD" and "HELP PEOPLE." Replacing the mysteries. Because when Pastor Jeff scans his flock's anxious faces, he sees a hunger for clarity and peace, success, love, reassurance.

"When anxieties enter my heart, I have to counter them," he calls out, listing off CNN news, terrorist threats, airport security and election politics, and repeating after each item, "God is going to see us through."

"Here's the chant," he finishes. "'Have faith in God.'" People repeat the words again and again, arms raised in praise. Their country is being attacked by foreign fanatics and their society is rotting from within. Faith is the best way they know to fight back.

"September 11 hit America," Pastor Jeff continues. "We have a president that took a stand. He is a believer. He came to town, we had a meeting, he explained what he had to do. These are warriors that don't respond to negotiation. It's like the Bible: David didn't negotiate with the Philistines."

He paces, his words impassioned. "There will be more of those attacks on the earth. Whenever there were wars through the ages, the church responded by putting their faith into God, and then certain things happened and the church surged forward. We are about to come into some of that." A man sitting alone in back leans forward eagerly. "God is getting ready to download some wild exploits," promises Pastor Jeff. "God has called us to something big, and it's going to take childlike faith. Nation-changing faith."

In other words, the faith of George W. Bush....

...Holst has attended the Family Church ever since. "I have a blueprint for my life now," he says. "Everything has fallen into place." Drugs are over: "God has weeded all of that out of my life." He pauses. "It's also helped me to love people. I was pretty cold before I met the Lord. Now, if I get cut off on the highway, I don't stick my middle finger out the window, because I know that's a person for whom Jesus died."

Holst sees the upcoming presidential race as "a double-edged sword. I know who I want to win," he says, "but on the other hand, I know that whoever wins, God has placed them in power for a reason. I try to judge by what God is saying on an issue. Obviously I'm pro-life, because that's what God says.

"I think President Bush is actively seeking answers from God, and I definitely want to see him continue."...

...He moves into his preaching: "Did you all know that Procter and Gamble is doing a massive hiring of homosexuals and lesbians? We're supposed to be the ones receiving those people into church to get them changed. All the stuff they are trying to do to keep the church separate from the state, there's just a massive effort by the Enemy to eradicate what this nation was founded on. You vote for who God tells you to vote for. Don't be fooled by political rhetoric. As Oral Roberts said, this election is a spiritual battle. And it should not be motivated by whether we are at war or not. The Bible says there will always be wars. You need to be looking at morality issues, the stuff that destroys countries. You need to be paying attention to the homosexual and lesbian issues. Because the Enemy is on the offensive."

They read aloud the opening of Psalm 118: "The Lord is on my side. I will not fear."

"Do you see that?" exclaims Thompson. "Now bow your heads. Father, we thank you that you're on our side." They repeat the phrase to each other in a crescendo: "The LORD is on our SIDE." Sweet relief on their faces, they embrace....

...In the last presidential election, Williams was so disgusted, she wrote in "Jesus Christ" as her candidate. But this time, she says her choice is clear. She sees our country's moral foundation disintegrating, and threats to family, decency and holiness weigh far heavier than a distant war or a strangled economy. When she taught Sunday school, she brought in a newspaper article outlining the candidates' positions on various issues. "Now you decide, based on what the Bible says, what type of person you want governing over you," she told the children.

"I always say, never make a decision based on your personal economic situation," she says now. "God knows, economically we're in terrible shape, and that is something that weighs hard on people. But Sodom and Gomorrah were flourishing economically, and morally and socially, they were all sick."...

...The split between mainline and evangelical Protestants only began in the early 1900s, he adds, and climaxed with the clash between Darwin and the Bible in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Fundamentalists won the case but lost their place in the mainstream. Perceiving that American culture had turned against them, fundamentalists retreated from public life and built their own infrastructure of Bible colleges, Bible camps, publishing houses and congregations. Meanwhile, the institutions founded by mainline Protestants were working so hard to be open, ecumenical, progressive and American, they lost their Protestant identity in the process.

Accidents of demography played a part, too: Mainline Protestant churches were built earlier than Catholic or evangelical churches, so they stood in either urban or rural areas, far from the suburbs and exurbs where most of the country had decided to live.

But other reasons run deeper. "One of the hallmarks of mainline Protestantism is that faith and thought are inextricably bound," says Greenhaw. "But the institutions have secularized, the educational system has collapsed and the deep commitment to education has fallen apart. This incredibly thoughtful, stretching experience in which no question is too hard to ask, has become, 'Don't ask that question because I might have to come up with an answer and I don't think I could.'"

Many blame a widening gap between the radical ideas explored in the seminaries and the platitudes heard in the pews. Protestant theologians are questioning Jesus's divinity, rethinking the doctrine of salvation, re-emphasizing Jesus's social radicalism, questioning whether God is all-powerful. But the clergy are reluctant to broach these ideas from the pulpit, and the faithful are terrified to hear them....