ARMS OUTSTRETCHED, the congregation at Hyde Park Baptist Church welcomed the Holy Spirit into their two-storey, stained-glass sanctuary. Along with the spirit came their pastor, Kie Bowman, accompanied by a full jazz orchestra. He summed up his sermon as: "to impact culture, love the Bible". But interspersed with this joyful invitation to share the Gospel were some spiky remarks, such his assertion that "you have to be convinced by the media that God does not exist." Such has been the transformation of white evangelical Christianity over the past half-century. But conservative politics in church have also caused a backlash. Mr Bowman's statements reflect the battle that evangelical denominations have been fighting since the 1980s, when evangelical leaders began to move past discussions about morality and embraced conservative rhetoric about individual rights. Andrew Lewis, author of a book about this phenomenon called "The Rights Turn", says that Republicans and conservative Christians now have a shared approach to the law. As examples, he points to the use of free-speech rights to defend anti-abortion legislation and to argue against regulating campaign finance. That fusion seemed complete in 2016, when 81% of white born-again Christians voted for Donald Trump, according to data from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group.
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