Religious expert lecturing on powerful evangelicals

COLUMBIA — An author and professor who has written about the increasing influence of evangelical Americans in politics, culture and economics will speak at MU on Thursday.

Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University and author of “Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite” will lecture at 7 p.m. in 115 Cornell Hall. Lindsay, a former consultant for pollster George Gallup Jr., on religion and culture, will examine the rise of the evangelical Christian influence in the major spheres of power in American life: political, intellectual, cultural and economic.

“I think that when it comes to religion and its portrayal in the media, one of the groups that is often stereotyped is Evangelicals,” said Debra Mason, director of the Center on Religion and the Professions at MU.

Lindsay is “breaking stereotypes and giving nuance into who American evangelicals really are,” Mason said.

According to the center’s Web site, Lindsay recently completed the nation’s largest and most comprehensive study of public leaders who are people of faith. He interviewed 360 prominent leaders, including two former presidents, for the book, which was named one of the “Best Books of 2007” by Publishers Weekly.

Lindsay demonstrates how, over the past two decades, evangelicals have moved into positions of great influence, according to a book review by Publishers Weekly. The Starred Review said, “He is a sympathetic observer who understands that evangelicalism is as reformist as any other movement that has ascended to power in America. Yet he also understands that evangelicalism has made accommodation to the larger public life it seeks to reform, a tension he calls elastic orthodoxy.”

Amy White, outreach coordinator at the Center, heard Lindsay speak in San Antonio last September.

“He’s very animated and well-spoken,” White said. “He’s definitely not the dry academic type.”

Mason said that the element of faith in this year’s elections makes Lindsay’s lecture very relevant. Lindsay’s book will be on sale during the lecture, and he’ll be signing books afterward.