O Happy Day

In the spirit of this holiday season (which some people say is sacred though I spent my day at a party hosted in a comic-book shop), I offer a ray of hope for our country's future: the BBC reports that hell-and-brimstone evangelicals in Kansas are losing interest in what the headline calls “Bible bashing.”

The article starts with some background about Kansas in general and Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps in particular, and then says this:

The point is that Pastor Phelps and his followers are not much liked by anyone inside or outside Kansas. The "burning at the stake" wing of America's Christian churches - the wing that stresses vengeance over love - is in trouble.

The gentle, Nativity-scene crowd are the ones on the up.

Mr Phelps still grabs horrified attention from foreigners and Americans alike but most religious Kansans (and that means most Kansans) are becoming steadily less aggressive: not less religious but less intolerant.

Opinion polls suggest that younger evangelical Christians are falling out of love with the "big causes" their churches have championed in recent years, in particular with opposing abortion and supporting the Iraq war.

The story goes on to discuss another preacher who lost his megachurch in Wichita and has been reduced to renting hotel conference rooms:

You would expect the Rev Fox in God-fearing Kansas, to be preaching in a mega-church, an establishment big enough to cope with the crowds.

And until recently he was: the Immanuel Baptist Church near the centre of town was his.

It was easily spotted because of the huge, tubular, white cross, 100ft (30 metres) high and heated from the inside so that it does not freeze and topple over.

But the Rev Fox's cross is all that is left of his ministry at the old place.

He tells me it was time to move on but most locals think he was thrown out for being too dogmatic, too extreme, even in Wichita.

To see Rev Fox in action, I had to go to the Best Western hotel out among the tattier motels and gas stations on the far outskirts of town.

Karma! And the bit about the younger crowd drifting away from the values of their parents is heartening, too.