...Evangelicals got credit for helping put George W. Bush in the White House, but religious and political scholars say they won't have nearly as much influence in this year's presidential race. The reasons, they say, are varied:

- Christian influence in politics has historically gone up and down since the early 1800s; this is another movement whose time may be up for now.

- The Bush administration hurt the evangelical cause - such as with the war in Iraq, its response to Hurricane Katrina and its alleged human rights violations at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center.

- Two of the movement's most important figures, D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell, are dead.

The biggest reason of all, though, may be the changing face of evangelicals themselves, experts say.
Evangelicals no longer seem to be the monolithic voting bloc they were a few years ago. A growing number don't think it's their place to politicize their faith, and many young believers are not interested in the traditional evangelical battlegrounds of abortion and gay rights; their focus is turning toward environmentalism and social justice.

In May, 70 Christian leaders signed "An Evangelical Manifesto," which calls for less politicizing of the faith and knee-jerk identification with the Republican Party. When Christianity is politicized, the manifesto said, "faith loses its independence, the church becomes ‘the regime at prayer,'" and Christians become "‘useful idiots' for one political party or another."...

The congregation at Revelation Church in Colorado Springs is typical of the new evangelism. The median age of its parishioners is 33. Three-quarters of the congregation, which averages 70 people a week, is under age 40.

"The more explosive issues of gay rights and abortion, though very important, have resulted in losing worthy focus in other areas, such as ecology and social justice and care of the poor," said Mark Dunn, 47, pastor of the nondenominational church. "If we fixate too strongly on one or two areas, we can miss these others."

Recent surveys underscore the shift. Forty-seven percent of bornagain Christians under age 41 say they think the efforts of conservative Christians in politics are a problem, according to a 2007 survey by the Barna Group, an evangelical organization that studies Christian trends. While that's less than a majority, it's a far cry from where this demographic stood 10 years ago.

"There is a significant level of skepticism among young Christians, especially when compared with people of the same age a decade ago," said David Kinnaman, Barna Group president and co-author of "UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity," published in 2007....

Still, evidence of a decline, if not a collapse, in the movement has been mounting.

The Christian Coalition of America, founded in 1989 to give Christians a stronger voice in government policy, is struggling financially. Last year, Kennedy closed his Washington, D.C.-based CCA centers that advocated for Christian political influence.

And Dobson's failure to endorse presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain this year has caused barely a ripple among Republicans.

Moreover, counterattacks on Dobson this week over his comments about Obama have been heated and have included conservative Christians.

After Dobson's statement Tuesday, Texas pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, who is a friend of the Bush family, and other Christian leaders launched a Web site, www.jamesdobsondoesntspeakforme.com. Visitors are asked to sign in and express their disapproval. On Friday, more than 10,000 people had signed in, according to the site....

This isn't to say that the Christian right has lost all its power. During the administration of George W. Bush, the bloc has been successful in pushing for the confirmation of conservative federal judges and justices, and securing the passage of state laws restricting abortions and defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

But several experts question how deep the religious right's legislative impact has gone, because state abortion laws by and large remain intact and more states, including Colorado, are passing gay civil rights laws. On June 16, California became the second state to allow same-sex marriages.

"When you look at mobilizing evangelicals and helping get politicians elected, the religious right hasn't done half bad," Green of the Pew Forum said. "But if you look at profoundly changing the law, they have not had nearly the success."

Christian conservatives' emphasis on gay rights and, to a lesser extent, abortion to the exclusion of other issues is an important reason for the movement's decline, several scholars and church leaders said.

"Evangelicals of the older generation have become obsessed in almost a technical psychological sense in opposing gay rights," said David Weddle, professor of religion at Colorado College. The irony, Weddle said, is that "homosexuality is not a biblical theme." There are only six biblical passages that address same-sex relationships, he said.

Some polls show that young bornagain Christians are more tolerant of gays and lesbians. According to a 2007 Barna study, 28 percent of born-agains, of which evangelicals are a subset, under age 42 think it is morally acceptable to have sex with someone of the same gender, compared with 13 percent of older born-agains.

And nearly 33 percent of young Bible believers support abortion rights, compared with 27 percent of older believers - a surprisingly high percentage for both age groups, Kinnaman said.

"The people in the pew don't always match the perspective of the leaders," Kinnaman said...