What Newsweek Gets Wrong About Evangelicals

“They wave their Bibles at passersby, screaming their condemnations,” writes Kurt Eichenwald of evangelical Christians.

“They fall on their knees, worshipping at the base of granite monuments to the Ten Commandments…They are God’s frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch.”

So begins Eichenwald’s recent cover story for Newsweek, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin,” which the author claims is meant to enlighten readers about the true nature and content of the Bible, but which almost certainly alienates the very people it aims to persuade by caricaturing and mocking them in the opening paragraphs.

I grew up evangelical in the small Southern town made famous for its fundamentalism by the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. I have written both warmly and critically about that evangelical upbringing, speaking out against problematic teachings regarding gender, sexuality, science and abuse.

I tackled biblical literalism and its negative affects on women with a yearlong project and book entitled, “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.” No one familiar with my work would consider me an unthinking apologist of evangelical culture. Indeed, plenty of evangelicals don’t consider me an evangelical anymore.

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