"Leading evangelicals have admitted that their association with George W. Bush has not only hurt the cause of social conservatives but contributed to the failure of the key objectives of their 30-year struggle," reports the Telegraph.

"James Dobson, 72, who resigned recently as head of Focus on the Family -- one of the largest Christian groups in the country -- and once denounced the Harry Potter books as witchcraft, acknowledged the dramatic reverse for the religious Right in a farewell speech to staff."

Quoting Dobson (here is YouTube audio):

We tried to defend the unborn child, the dignity of the family, but it was a holding action. . . . We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged. We are right now in the most discouraging period of that long conflict. Humanly speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles.

One would do well not to accept this kind of reporting without a grain of salt. Having said that, if Christians want success in the culture war, they must drop the methods and practices of Madison Ave. (celebrityism, bigism, pretend authors, fake writers, phony columnists, fundraising-driven ministry, staffs who enable phony "thinking" "leaders") and embrace the methods and principles of the Lord's the the Lord's way, as Francis Schaeffer puts it in his No Little People (Try: real work by real people, for example). 

There's much more to be said, and we plan to say it, but for now, consider the following resources:

* "Francis Schaeffer: A Student's Appreciation of a Distinct Approach" -- My view is that much of modern evangelicalism has missed or -- worse -- rejected perhaps the most important aspects of Schaeffer's prophetic, Biblical, profound, and humane insights regarding cultural engagement. 

* "True Spirituality and Christian Worldview," chapter 13 in Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Secular Captivity -- In light of the success, or lack thereof, of Christian cultural engagement, caring people may want to examine how the Lordship of Christ applies to one's methods of ministry. The discontinuity is alarming, to say the least. Frankly, if all I had to go on regarding the truth-claims of the Judeo-Chrisitan worldview is what I've seen of some "big time" Christian ministry up close and personal, I'd join Camus and the girls on the beach immediately.

* "The Church," chapter 13 in Schaeffer's True Spirituality -- I enjoy the Hodder and Stoughton edition. Or perhaps Crossway's Complete Works.