Mao Tse-tung famously wrote that when it comes to power, inevitably "one divides into two." As the Communist Chinese leader explained the dialectic, when any group reaches a certain level of control, fissures expand into struggles that can result in division and displacement. In the Sun Belt's suburbs, largely out of view of blue-state media, that is exactly what is happening in the world of evangelical Christianity.
In a subtle yet tectonic shift, a slightly younger, considerably less pugnacious and less reflexively Republican generation of conservative leaders is bidding to dislodge familiar faces such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Focus on the Family's James Dobson and the Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land, who have held a virtual monopoly on the role of movement spokesmen for more than a decade.
Some of the new guard, such as Rick Warren, author of the megaseller The Purpose-Driven Life, already have made their presence known on the national scene. Others such as Richard Cizik and Ted Haggard, lobbyist and president, respectively, of the National Association of Evangelicals, have started making the rounds as talking heads.
But how many outside the Sun Belt would recognize Frank Page, who in June upset the inside-track candidate for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination? Page won on a platform of changing the tone of the debate about social and political issues. When the evangelical magazine Christianity Today covered the Baptist election, the headline read, "A Kinder, Gentler Conservatism."
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/15591380.htm
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