The article discusses how evangelical Christians in America feel their influence is declining as the country becomes more accepting of issues like gay marriage. It describes how evangelicals used to dominate American culture but now see themselves as a persecuted minority. While evangelicals remain politically influential, supporting candidates like Ted Cruz, their views on social issues like same-sex marriage are increasingly out of step with the broader public. The article profiles a pastor in Kentucky who feels evangelicals are under attack but wants to uphold their beliefs gently rather than aggressively.

1. COLUMBIA MISSOURIANPage 4A — Sunday & Monday, June 12-13, 2016
BY RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
B
ENTON, Kentucky — Pastor
Richie Clendenen stepped away
from the pulpit, microphone in
hand. He walked the aisles of the
Christian Fellowship Church, his
voice rising to describe the perils
believers face in 21st-century Amer-
ica.
“The Bible says in this life you will
have troubles; you will have persecu-
tions. And Jesus takes it a step fur-
ther: You’ll be hated by all nations
for my namesake,” he said.
“Let me tell you,” the minister
said, “that time is here.”
The faithful in the pews needed
little convincing. Even in this deeply
religious swath of western Kentucky
— a state where about half the res-
idents are evangelical — conserva-
tive Christians feel under siege.
For decades, they say, they have
been steadily pushed to the sidelines
of American life and have come
under attack for their most deeply
held beliefs, born of their reading of
Scripture and their religious man-
date to evangelize. The 1960s ban
on prayer in public schools is still a
fresh wound. Every legal challenge
to a public Nativity scene or Ten
Commandments display is anoth-
er marginalization. They’ve been
“steamrolled,” they say, and “misun-
derstood.”
Religious conservatives could
once count on their neighbors to at
least share their view of marriage.
Those days are gone. Public opin-
ion on same-sex relationships turned
against conservatives even before
the U.S. Supreme Court legalized
gay marriage nationwide.
Now, many evangelicals say liber-
als want to seal their cultural victory
by silencing the church. Liberals
call this paranoid. But evangelicals
see evidence of the threat in every
new uproar over someone assert-
ing a right to refuse recognition of
same-sex marriages — whether it
be a baker, a government clerk or
the leaders of religious charities and
schools.
America’s divisions — right-left,
urban-rural, black-white and more
— spill daily into people’s lives from
their relations with each other, to
their harsh communications on
social media, to their decisions in
an acrimonious presidential election
campaign. Many Christian conser-
vatives feel there is another, less rec-
ognized chasm in American life, and
they find themselves on the other
side of the divide between “we” and
“them.”
Clendenen, preaching on this
recent Sunday, reflected on the
chasm between his congregants and
other Americans.
“There’s nobody hated more in this
nation than Christians,” he said amid
nods and cries of encouragement.
“Welcome to America’s most want-
ed: You.”
* * *
For evangelicals like those at
Christian Fellowship, the sense of a
painful reckoning is not just imag-
ined; their declining clout in public
life can be measured.
The turnabout is astonishing
and hard to grasp — for them and
for other Americans — since the
U.S. remains solidly religious and
Christian, and evangelicals are still
a formidable bloc in the Republi-
can Party. But a series of losses in
church membership and in public
policy battles, along with America’s
changing demographics, are weak-
ening evangelical influence, even
in some of the most conservative
regions of the country.
“The shift in the last few years
has really been stunning,” said Ed
Stetzer, executive director of Life-
way Research, an evangelical con-
sulting firm in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Nobody would have guessed the
pace of change. That’s why so many
people are yelling we have to take
our country back.”
The Protestant majority that domi-
nated American culture through the
nation’s history is now a Protestant
minority. Their share of the popula-
tion dipped below 50 percent some-
time after 2008.
Liberal-leaning Protestant groups,
such as Presbyterians and Luther-
ans, started shrinking earlier, but
some evangelical churches are now
in decline. The conservative South-
ern Baptist Convention lost 200,000
from its ranks in 2014 alone, drop-
ping to 15.5 million, its smallest
number in more than two decades.
The trend is reflected in the high-
est reaches of public life. The U.S.
Supreme Court is now comprised
completely of Jews and Roman Cath-
olics. In the 2012 presidential elec-
tion, the Republican nominees were
a Mormon, Mitt Romney, and a Cath-
olic, Paul Ryan.
“We’ve lost our home field advan-
tage,” Stetzer said.
At the same time, the Bible Belt,
as a cultural force, is collapsing,
said the Rev. Russell Moore, head of
the Southern Baptist public policy
agency.
Nearly a quarter of Americans say
they no longer affiliate with a faith
tradition. It’s the highest share ever
recorded in surveys, indicating the
stigma for not being religious has
eased — even in heavily evangelical
areas. Americans who say they have
no ties to organized religion, dubbed
“nones,” now make up about 23 per-
cent of the population, just behind
evangelicals, who comprise about
25 percent, according to the Pew
Research Center.
Christians who have been only
nominally tied to a conservative
church are steadily dropping out
altogether. When Moore was grow-
ing up in Mississippi, any parent
whose children weren’t baptized by
age 12 or 13 would face widespread
disapproval, he said. Those times
have passed.
“People don’t have to be culturally
identified with evangelical Christi-
anity in order to be seen as good peo-
ple, good neighbors or good Ameri-
cans,” Moore said.
Politically, old guard religious
right organizations, such as the
Moral Majority and the Christian
Coalition, are greatly diminished or
gone, and no broadly unifying leader
or organization has replaced them.
In this year’s presidential race, the
social policy issues championed by
Christian conservatives are not cen-
tral, even amid the furor over bath-
room access for transgender people.
Clendenen said many in his church
backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who
had positioned himself in the Repub-
lican primaries as the standard bear-
er for religious conservatives. Chris
Haynes, a church band member and
communications professor, said he
voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Some congregants now support pre-
sumptive nominee Donald Trump
— a thrice-married, profane casino
magnate with a record of positions at
odds with social conservatism. “It’s
like we’re scraping the bottom of the
barrel” for candidates, said Haynes’
wife, Brandi, who teaches at the
Christian Fellowship school.
White evangelical voters remain
very influential in early prima-
ries. About two-thirds of Iowa cau-
cus voters this year said they were
born-again Christians. In Mississip-
pi, eight in 10 primary voters were
evangelical. And they turn out at
high rates in general elections.
But white evangelicals can’t match
the growth rate of groups that tend
to support Democrats — Latinos,
younger people and Americans with
no religious affiliation. In 2004,
overwhelming evangelical support
helped secure a second term for
President George W. Bush, a Chris-
tian conservative who made social
issues a priority. In 2012, evangeli-
cals voted for Romney at the same
rate — yet he lost.
This is a far cry from 1976, which
Newsweek declared the “Year of the
Evangelical” when born-again can-
didate Jimmy Carter won the presi-
dency, and more conservative Chris-
tians were drawn into politics. Four
years later, Ronald Reagan famously
recognized the emerging influence
of the religious right, telling evan-
gelicals in Dallas, “I know you can’t
endorse me, but I endorse you and
what you’re doing.”
No issue has more starkly illumi-
nated conservative Christians’ wan-
ing influence than the struggle over
same-sex marriage.
Evangelicals were “all in” with
their opposition to gay rights start-
ing back with the Moral Majority
in the 1980s, said Robert Jones,
author of “The End of White Chris-
tian America.” In the 2004 election,
Americans appeared to be on the
same page, approving bans on same-
sex marriage in all 11 states where
the measures were on the ballot.
When President Barack Obama was
first elected in 2008, just four in 10
Americans supported gay marriage.
But three years later, support rose
to more than five in 10. And now
the business wing of the Republican
Party is deserting social conserva-
tives on the issue, largely backing
anti-discrimination policies for gays
and transgender people. Younger
Americans, including younger evan-
gelicals, are especially accepting of
same-sex relationships, which means
evangelicals “have lost a generation
on this issue,” Jones said.
“This issue is so prominent and so
symbolic,” said Jones, chief exec-
utive of Public Religion Research
Institute, which specializes in sur-
veys about religion and public life.
“It was such a decisive loss, not only
in the actual courts, the legal courts,
but also in the court of public opin-
ion. They lost legally and they lost
culturally.”
Clendenen said he saw “a lot of
fear, a lot of anger” in his church
after the Supreme Court ruling. He
said it made him feel that Christians
like him had been pushed to the edge
of a cliff.
“It has become the keystone
issue,” he said while sitting in his
office, where photos of his father
and grandfather, both preachers, are
on display. “I never thought we’d be
in the place we are today. I never
thought that the values I’ve held
my whole life would bring us to a
point where we were alienated or
suppressed.”
Trump uses rhetoric that has res-
onance for Christian conservatives
who fear their teachings on mar-
riage will soon be outlawed as hate
speech.
“We’re going to protect Christian-
ity, and I can say that,” Trump has
said. “I don’t have to be politically
correct.”
* * *
If culture wars and the outside
world once felt remote amid the soy-
bean and tobacco farms around Mar-
shall County, Kentucky, change of
many kinds is now obvious to Clen-
denen’s congregants.
Latino immigrants are starting to
arrive in significant numbers, drawn
partly by farm work. Muslims are
working at chicken processing plants
in the next county or enrolling at
nearby Murray State University. On a
recent weeknight, a group of women
wearing abayas shopped in a Dollar
General store near campus. Some
gays and lesbians are out in the com-
munity, and Clendenen says he occa-
sionally sees them at Sunday worship.
It was on the other side of Ken-
tucky, in Rowan County, where clerk
Kim Davis spent five days in jail last
year for refusing on religious grounds
to issue marriage licenses to same-
sex couples since the licenses would
include her name. Gov. Matt Bevin
recently tried to defuse the conflict
by signing a bill creating a form with-
out a clerk’s name.
In New Mexico and Oregon, a pho-
tographer and a baker were fined
under nondiscrimination laws after
refusing work for same-sex ceremo-
nies. Daniel Slayden, a Christian Fel-
lowship member and owner of Par-
cell’s, a popular bakery and deli near
the church, has never been asked to
bake a wedding cake for a same-sex
couple but already knows how he’d
respond.
“If a homosexual couple comes in
and wants a cake, then that’s fine. I
mean I’ll do it as long as I’m free to
speak my truth to them,” said Slayden,
taking a break after the lunchtime
rush. “I don’t want to get (to) any point
to where I have to say or accept that
their belief is the truth.”
The problem, many religious con-
servatives say, is that government is
growing more coercive in many areas
bearing on their beliefs.
They say some colleges — citing
a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that
required school groups to accept all
comers — are revoking recognition
for Christian student clubs because
they require their leaders to hold cer-
tain beliefs.
Some faith-based nonprofits with
government contracts, such as Cath-
olic Charities in Illinois, have shut-
tered adoption programs because of
new state rules that say agencies with
taxpayer funding can’t refuse place-
ments with same-sex couples.
And religious leaders worry that
Christian schools and colleges will
lose accreditation or tax-exempt sta-
tus over their codes of conduct bar-
ring same-sex relationships.
A 1983 U.S. Supreme Court rul-
ing allowed the IRS to revoke non-
profit status from religious schools
that banned interracial dating. In the
Supreme Court gay marriage case,
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Ver-
rilli, representing the government,
was asked whether something similar
could happen to Christian schools,
which often provide housing for mar-
ried students. He responded, “It’s cer-
tainly going to be an issue,” causing
a meltdown across the evangelical
blogosphere.
It has come to this: Many conser-
vative Christians just don’t feel wel-
come in their own country.
They say they are either mocked or
erased in popular culture. “When was
the last time you saw an evangelical
or conservative Christian character
portrayed positively on TV?” Stetzer
asked.
“The idea of what we call biblical
morality in our culture at large is
completely laughed at and spurned
as nonsense,” said David Parish, a
former pastor at Christian Fellow-
ship and the son of its founder. “The
church as an institution, as a public
entity — we are moving more and
more in conflict with the culture and
with other agendas.”
How to navigate this new reality?
Most conservative Christians fall into
one of three broad camps.
There are those who are deter-
mined to even more fiercely wage the
culture wars, demanding the broadest
possible religious exemptions from
recognizing same-sex marriage.
There are those who plan to with-
draw as much as possible into their
own communities to preserve their
faith —an approach dubbed the “Ben-
edict Option,” for a fifth-century saint
who, disgusted by the decadence of
Rome, fled to the forest where he
lived as a hermit and prayed.
There is, however, a segment
that advocates living as a “prophet-
ic minority,” confidently upholding
their beliefs but in a gentler way
that rejects the aggressive tone of
the old religious right and takes up
other issues, such as ending human
trafficking, that can cross ideological
lines.
Clendenen is cut from this mold.
Now 38, he came of age when the
religious right was at its apex, and he
concluded any mix of partisan politics
with Christianity was toxic for the
church.
A congregant once lobbied him to
participate in Pulpit Freedom Sun-
day, an annual conservative effort
to defy IRS rules against backing
politicians from the pulpit. Clendenen
stood before the congregation and
endorsed ... Jesus.
He prays for President Barack
Obama, considering it a Christian
duty no matter his opposition to the
president’s policies. But Clendenen
believes few Americans who support
same-sex marriage would show him
or his fellow evangelicals a similar
level of respect. “On any front that
we speak on, we’re given this label
of intolerance, we’re given this label
of hate,” Clendenen said. (He said
evangelicals are partly responsible
for the backlash, however, because
of the hateful language some used
in the marriage debates. “I don’t see
the LGBT community as my enemy,”
he said.)
He uses the word persecution to
describe what Christians are facing in
the U.S., even though he feels strange
doing so. He has traveled extensively
to help start churches in other coun-
tries, and knows the violence many
Christians endure. A map of the world
is posted in his office with pins in the
places he’s visited, including Romania
and Kenya. And yet, he feels the word
applies here, too.
He ruminated on all of this as he
prepared to head into his sanctuary
to lead the Sunday service.
Some good may come of these
hard times, he believes. Conserva-
tive Christians who have been com-
placent will have to decide just how
much their religion matters “when
there’s a price to pay for it,” he
said. Christianity has often thrived
in countries where it faces intense
opposition, he noted.
Preaching now, Clendenen urged
congregants to hold fast to their posi-
tions in a country that has grown
hostile to them. And as the worship
service wound down, he issued a
final exhortation.
“Don’t give up,” he said. “Don’t let
your light go out.”
Q&A:
EXAMINING
WHITE
EVANGELICAL
APPREHENSION
BY RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
Conservative Christians are anxious
about their future after losing the
fight over gay marriage, and amid the
growing share of Americans who have
left organized religion. Here’s a look at
why white evangelicals are feeling so
alienated from other Americans and at
the changes fueling this anxiety.
WHAT’S CHANGING?
The U.S. remains solidly Christian,
but between 2007 and 2014, the
share of Christians in the country
dropped from about 78 percent of
the population to just under 71 per-
cent, according to the Pew Research
Center.
The decline was fueled mostly by
losses among Roman Catholics and
mainline Protestants. However, even
in parts of the Bible Belt, conservative
Christians who hadn’t been very active
in church are now feeling more com-
fortable saying they’re no longer reli-
gious. The membership ranks of some
evangelical denominations, such as
the Southern Baptist Convention, are
shrinking.
At the same time, the segment
of Americans who say they have no
particular religion has increased from
16 percent to 23 percent, Pew found.
That’s close to the share of evangel-
icals, who comprise just over 25 per-
cent of the population.
At the same time, evangelicals are
wrestling with being on the losing side
of the fight over same-sex marriage.
It was not only a defeat on a deeply
significant religious and moral issue,
but also evidence of a lack of conser-
vative Christian influence over public
opinion. More than half of Americans
now support same-sex marriage.
Politically, white evangelicals remain
one of the most important blocs in
the Republican Party, and they con-
tinue to shape the early presidential
primaries. But with the diminishment
of old-guard religious right groups,
Christian conservatives no longer
have a unifying leader. As a result,
evangelicals are splintering, diluting
their influence. And they can’t match
the growth rate of groups who tend to
support Democrats: Latinos, young
people and people who are unaffiliat-
ed with a religion.
WHY ARE CONSERVATIVE
CHRISTIANS SO
ANXIOUS?
Evangelicals are deeply worried
about the fallout from the spread of
LGBT rights and the growth of secu-
larism.
They point to cases like the fines
levied on a New Mexico photogra-
pher and Oregon baker for refusing
business related to gay weddings.
Conservative Christians fear their
schools and colleges could lose their
tax-exempt status or accreditation
over codes of conduct barring same-
sex relationships.
A 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling
allowed the IRS to revoke tax-exempt
status from religious schools that
banned interracial dating. In the
Supreme Court gay marriage case last
year, U.S. Solicitor General Donald
Verrilli, representing the government,
was asked whether something similar
could happen to Christian schools,
which often provide housing for mar-
ried students. “It’s certainly going to
be an issue,” he responded, causing
alarm in the evangelical blogosphere.
And religious conservatives worry
about new rules added to government
contracts that will affect faith-based
social service agencies. For example,
Catholic Charities in Illinois shuttered
its adoption program over a new
state rule that agencies with taxpayer
funding can’t refuse placements with
same-sex couples.
Gay rights groups consider these
changes a welcome corrective to
decades of discrimination. They
contend conservatives are using con-
science rights and religious freedom
complaints as an end run around
advances for LGBT people. But con-
servative Christians say they are just
seeking a balance between religious
liberty and civil rights.
HOW ARE EVANGELICALS
REACTING?
Evangelicals are debating wheth-
er they should even more fiercely
wage the culture war, withdraw back
into their own communities or stay
engaged with Americans of other
views, not only to help shape public
discussion of morality but also to try
and bring people into the church.
Christian publishers are churning
out books and Bible studies on this
last strategy, such as “Onward,” by
Russell Moore, “Thriving in Babylon,”
by Larry Osborne, and “Good Faith,
Being a Christian When Society Thinks
You’re Irrelevant or Extreme,” by Gabe
Lyons and David Kinnaman.
Advocates of this strategy generally
feel the sharp rhetoric of the religious
right — on homosexuality and other
issues — ultimately hurt Christians.
This group aims to confidently advo-
cate for their beliefs, no matter how
unpopular, but without vilifying their
opponents. These evangelicals are
also emphasizing issues that can
cross ideological lines, including fight-
ing racism and human trafficking, as
part of highlighting the more compas-
sionate side of their faith.
THE DIVIDE BETWEEN US AND THEMBoth conservative Christians and Evangelicals feel
under siege by liberals, the government for their
religious beliefs and culture practices
ABOVE:
Parishioners
pray during
a service at
the Christian
Fellowship
Church in
Benton,
Kentucky.
Religious
conservatives
could once
count on their
neighbors to
share their view
of marriage.
Public opinion
on same-sex
relationships
had turned
against
conservatives
even before the
U.S. Supreme
Court legalized
gay marriage.
LEFT: Leaflets
sit in the
window of
the local
Republican
party office
in Benton,
Kentucky.
Photos by
David Goldman
The Associated
Press
In this April 10 photo, lead pastor Richie Clendenen speaks during a service at the Christian Fellowship Church in Benton, Kentucky.
Clendenen reflected on the gulf between his congregants and other Americans. Stepping away from the pulpit, microphone in hand, he
walked the sanctuary aisles, and his rising voice underscored his warning about what’s ahead. “The Bible says in this life you will have
troubles; you will have persecutions. And Jesus takes it a step further: You’ll be hated by all nations for my namesake. Let me tell you,”
Clendenen said, “that time is here.”
Sunday & Monday, June 12-13, 2016 — Page 5A
“If a homosexual
couple comes in and
wants a cake, then
that’s fine. I mean, I’ll
do it as long as I’m
free to speak my truth
to them. I don’t want
to get (to) any point to
where I have to say or
accept that their belief
is the truth.”
DANIEL SLAYDEN
Christian Fellowship member
and owner of Parcell’s,
a bakery and deli