How influence works in Evangelical culture.

Ryan Lizza's New Yorker piece on Michele Bachmann set some bloggers to complaining about "strange inferences" and the occasional "stupid and dishonest" claim. My impression of the piece is that it's Lizza's well-intentioned but failed attempt to explain a subculture that baffles him.

The section on Francis Schaeffer is obviously the most egregious. For a Christian to express admiration for Schaeffer is not necessarily to endorse all of Schaeffer's ideas. Rather, it's to endorse his commitment to Christian engagement with culture, as contrasted with a fundamentalist shunning of the secular. That notion that a theologically conservative Christian could write about existentialism, hit movies, and art history was incredibly important for evangelicals in my father's generation. (I take a very negative view of the content of Schaeffer's contribution, and think his achievement consisted almost entirely in getting better thinkers to take up the issues he raised.)

Anyways, I'd say that neither the Lizza article nor Michelle Goldberg's related Daily Beast essay on "Dominionism" rings true when it comes to patterns of influence in the religious right, though my only reason for thinking so is personal experience with fairly conservative Christian schools, and with moderately conservative churches.

Though David Sessions is getting closer here, it's not just about the numbers:

Here’s the reality: Dominionism as a term or a school of thought is virtually unknown even to conservative evangelicals of the type who adore Bachmann and Palin. [...] It is difficult to overstate how fringe it is in its purest forms, how tiny the number of people who are aware of and embrace its arguments.

What's also missing in these articles is a solid analysis of the institutions of evangelical culture. Do these ideas have traction in the so-called flagship universities, like Wheaton? What about seminaries? Did Christianity Today take a position? How about the radio networks? Are the ideas popular in the Christian entertainment industry?

As an example of how that last question might be answered, Schaeffer's influence led Chuck Colson to push the notion of the "Christian Worldview," defined by Colson's organization as "a framework for understanding and interacting with the physical world, other humans, and the Divine." The Christian rock band Audio Adrenaline, in turn, included a song called "My Worldview" on their 1993 album Don't Censor Me. Listen at your own risk.

Does anyone sing about Dominionism?