In response to Atrios's question about who speaks for evangelical Christians, if not whack jobs like Pat Robertson, Amy Sullivan comes up with a pretty good list:
I need the caveat, of course, that the evangelical community (and even the conservative evangelical community) is very diverse and doesn't have one acknowledged leader. But given that, there are a few different groups of people who should be (and sometimes are) featured as evangelical voices. For religious leaders, there are Ted Haggard of New Life Church and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, Brian McLaren of Cedar Ridge Church, Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church, Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church, and Franklin Graham (Billy's son). Political voices include Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Cizik of NAE, Joseph Loconte of the Heritage Foundation, and Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
And then, of course, there are your white liberal evangelicals (Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, Tony Campolo) and your black evangelicals (Herb Lusk, TD Jakes).
I heard Teg Haggard on Christopher Lydon's Open Source last month, and though I thought he was almost totally wrong, I respected the way he engaged in the conversation. It was a pleasure not to tune in only to hear a conservative evangelical spouting Coulteresque strident talking points. I can listen to Haggard, as well as most of the others that Amy mentions above.
Ditto!
Thanks for your thoughtful posts on the topics you choose.
Posted by: reader_iam | January 09, 2006 at 02:03 PM