At Street Prophets, Pastor Dan has is discussing the ways in which young Americans increasingly identify as non-religious:

But in general, thanks a lot, Religious Right. Not only did you help f*** up this country by propping up a bunch of venal sociopaths and helping them win election after election, but you also helped undermine the very religion you claimed to defend by convincing an entire generation that it was made up of hateful, narrow bigots. Way to go. Well done, good and faithful servants.

The broader point, from a report Pastor Dan read:

While these young “nones” may not belong to a church, they are not necessarily atheists.

“Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church,” Putnam said. “They have the same attitidues and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues.”

Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of “intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views,” and therefore stopped going to church.

What has happened is twofold. First, the historically progressive mainline denominations have come through a difficult period of adjustment during which they have lost members and influence. Much of that change has come about as these denominations have struggled to find ways to integrate not only new social trends (Civil Rights, Feminism, glbt issues) and as a result many of their more conservative members have migrated to more socially conservative denominations, which has reinforced their theological conservatism and their socially conservative attitudes. Other social forces – including the rights decades long backlash against the 1960s – have conspired to create an environment in which the public face of American Christianity has been the religious right – the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells, the Billy Grahams and John Hagees.

The outcome has been that – especially in the last 15 years or so – that when Americans think of Christianity, they think of the bigoted, angry, Christian right, not the tolerant, heterodox mainline. Or, Americans think of the Amish. (I know it’s ancillary, but Mitt Romney – slick, smooth talking, shiny suited and unctuous – is the very model of the evangelical pastor which may explain his reception by Americans.) Either way, millions of Americans, especially young Americans, want nothing to do with it.

As Pastor Dan observed, the result has been a narrowing of the appeal of the Christian church in such a way that even young Christians perceive the church as bigoted, hypocritical and out of touch (so says a Barna poll from ‘07).

I have some thoughts about Christianity and the Christian story that I want to explore but they’re insufficiently organized to go into detail now, but . . .

What’s happened has been the sidelining of some of the truly prophetic movements in the Christian church – the Catholic hierarchy purging liberation theologians on the argument that liberation theology was communist, the bloody attacks by conservatives on feminist and gay theologians, the vitriolic description of the justice and peace movements and activists as socialists/communists have served not to strengthen the church but to silence a vital voice within the Christian community. Aided and abetted by a media that is apparently incapable of reporting on religion in an intelligent way (and nuance is obviously beyond most the American media) the outcome has been that the sideshow freaks have taken over the main ring when it comes to religion in America. FWIW, I think the media’s problem with reporting on religion rests in a very real discomfort with the subject and a desire to not appear biased; the outcome being that most media persons are unwilling to call BS on the religious right and since many right wing religious leaders make for good viewing, they get more attention. A moderate voice saying, “There are many ways to examine and understand this issue and we need to proceed by understanding those who disagree with us” is less interesting than a conservative one screaming “Gay people and feminists caused 9/11″ (or hurricanes or earthquakes or the financial collapse or whatever).

So, the public face of Christianity in the US has become the face of bigotry, narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy. To put it another way, in the eyes of millions of Americans, Christianity stands for bigotry and only bigots are Christian.