The Restless Evangelicals by Caleb Stegall

The Restless Evangelicals

Caleb Stegall on Finding the Common Good in an Augustinian Republic

Newsweek proclaimed 1976 the “year of the evangelical.” The following thirty-odd years saw Evangelical Christians become a political force, playing a key role in the Reagan revolution of the 1980s, the 1994 GOP Congressional take-over, the impeachment battles of the late 1990s, and the two-term presidency of George W. Bush.

The year 2008, however, will likely be remembered as the year the Evangelical political consensus—which had cohered so strongly around family values, industrial capitalism, and American exceptionalism—fell apart.

THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:


Caleb Stegall is a lawyer and writer in Perry, Kansas. His forthcoming book on the history of prairie populism and the future of American regionalism is due out from ISI Books in 2009. He and his wife Ann have five boys and attend Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lawrence, Kansas, where Stegall serves as a ruling elder.

Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

Online
Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.


more from the online archives

32.4—July/August 2019

A Case of Win-Win

on Probability, Death & the Existence of God by Graeme Hunter

33.3—May/June 2020

Deliberation, Inc.

Human & Divine Societies Require Careful Thought & Discourse by Anthony Esolen

5.3—Summer 1992

The Bible Tells Me So

Everything You Need to Know About Morality & the Bible by David Mills

calling all readers

Please Donate

"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand

"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor

Support Touchstone

00