When George W. Bush became President, evangelical Christians like myself traded stories about his dramatic conversion. He had been an alcoholic but had found Jesus. He had become one of us. We welcomed his Presidency because he would stand for what we stood for. Family values. Marriage between one man and one woman. The curtailment of abortion. He would uphold our moral agenda.

When 9/11 occurred, we knew that God had given America the right man for the job. In an age when "evil" was a dirty word, Bush would have the character and resolve to name evil and confront it.

When Bush initiated the war in Iraq, most of my evangelical friends were for it. The spirit of the day was that it would be un-American not to "support our troops" and our President. After all, Bush understood our situation in history as only a Christian could. Somewhere out there, beyond the borders of America, a vicious evil lurked. All of us Americans—the "good" folk—had to unite together, seek out that evil, and destroy it. Like the ancient Israelites purging the wicked Canaanites from the land, God had appointed our generation to confront fundamentalist Muslims.

Then the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison emerged, shocking us into mute disgust. Not only were the images revolting but they turned our worldview on its head. The evil wasn't "out there" anymore. The good guys, too, carried out the basest forms of evil. The line between "us" and "them" blurred into indistinction.

Later we learned that Bush had flaunted the constitution by authorizing domestic wiretaps. We heard about the CIA's secret prisons and the torture techniques they used there. We learned that Bush himself had authorized the use of torture.

At first, evangelicals were slow to respond. Maybe the "harsh interrogation techniques" Bush had authorized weren't really torture? Maybe Bush had intelligence we didn't have—intelligence that somehow compelled Americans to use torture? There must be a reason that our brother in Christ would authorize the sort of inhumane treatment we watched in the Passion of the Christ.

Three years after the allegations had emerged, the National Evangelical Association released a declaration against torture. The announcement underscored—belatedly—a shift in the way American evangelicals had come to think about their government and the President. We saw this shift again in the 2008 elections where only 54% of churchgoing evangelicals voted for the Republican candidate—down from 61% in 2004.

Throughout the Bush years, most of my evangelical friends remained die-hard Bush supporters. Even after Obama won last November, many of them bemoaned his victory and dreaded his presidency even as they committed to praying for him. Yet others—especially of the younger generations—welcomed Obama with enthusiasm. Some swore never to vote Republican again. The Bush years changed the evangelical mind, but they didn't change all evangelicals equally.

I've been surprised by the diverse reactions from the Christians around me. I'm trying to understand why some have praised Bush through even his most questionable decisions while others consider the Bush Presidency one of the most villainous administrations in American history.

I've decided it all comes down to who you see as the enemy.

Evangelicals have traditionally had a strong sense of "us" and "them." We are the good guys. We have—or try to have—committed marriages. We guard our children against M-rated games and R-rated movies. We put pornography blockers on our computers. We feel uneasy when the lesbian couple moves in next door. We see our homes as bastions, sanctuaries against the evil of "the world." The world is Hollywood, liberals, activists who threaten to woo our kids into lechery, promiscuity, and homosexuality. Although America has declined since the 50s—morally speaking, of course—it still feels like "our" place. But "they" are always knocking at the door, making inroads, threatening to change our country into a sexualized, athiest, amoral wasteland. The enemy is anyone who would take our decent, essentially (if covertly) Christian America away from us.

It's this mindset that supported Bush through thick and thin. Bush could start the first pre-emptive wars in American history, he could sit on his hands while (wicked) New Orleans sank, he could even torture "them." So long as he fought terrorists, gay rights, and abortion, he was one of "us."

Though many evangelicals still carry strains of this mindset in their DNA, the moral blurriness of the Bush Presidency has caused others to think again. The enemy is not so easy to pin down. Evangelicals uphold the sanctity of marriage, yet get divorced as often as non-Christians. Evangelicals distrust Hollywood, yet allow TV and the Internet to babysit our children. National Evangelical Association president Ted Haggard turned out to be a drug user and sometime homosexual. Last month, NEA vice president Richard Cizik—one of the drafters of the declaration against torture—resigned after admitting he supported civil unions. Evangelicals who looked for evil "out there" are increasingly finding it "in here."

So it turns out that the enemy is within. Surprise, surprise. Isn't this what the Bible taught all along? "No one is righteous—no, not one."

The foundational truth of Christianity—how could we have forgotten it?—is that each of us is filled with evil. Paul portrayed this truth vividly: "When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am!"

Who is the enemy? I am.

Paul knew that Jesus didn't come to guard us from Romans or terrorists or the lesbians down the street—he came to cleanse us from the evil within. Evangelicals know it too. But somewhere along the line, in our terror for our children, our lifestyle, and our souls, we let ourselves forget.

As Barack Obama takes on the leadership of the nation next Tuesday, evangelicals gain—as do so many others—a new opportunity to rediscover our identity and mission. As I struggle to do this for myself and my own family, the image that stands out to me most brilliantly is the scene Jesus painted of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9–14). The Pharisee lived an upright life and even gave his money to the temple. But the parasitic tax collector, the moral scum of Jewish society,

stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Labels: faith, politics