Last week my friend Cal Thomas highlighted the fact that D. James Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America for Christ and Center for Christian Statesmanship – long-time members of the conservative Christian coalition – was closing its doors. Cal wrote hopefully:
Christians are also fond of saying God never closes one door without opening another door. The “door” of the Center for Reclaiming America has closed. The new doors can produce a more effective politics, if what’s on the other side is based on a message that has less to do with partisanship and more to do with the One who transcends all politics and Who lends His power only to those who will use it as He instructed.
Well, late last week, while few were looking, one of the organizations opened its doors again…to do exactly what it had been doing before. The Center for Christian Statesmanship is back. The religious right isn’t finished – it is just taking advantage of all the press about its demise to do what it does every time it has been proclaimed dead (1992, 1996, 1998); get stronger.
Are there very real shifts occurring among Evangelicals? Absolutely. Evangelicals are reexamining their priorities and their politics. But this is not to say any great change has occurred at the core. Not yet. Not yet.