That Old Time Religion: The Evangelical Empire

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"never let me go until he was sure I could stand on my feet." Still a tireless community apostle at 50, Haynes returns the favor to as many young people as he can. He also makes certain that his elderly members are picked up and brought to the church three times a week. A black, Haynes served three terms in the Massachusetts house of representatives and is now on the state parole board. Like most black Evangelicals, he has no patience whatever with his white brothers who pay no attention to social justice. Yet he insists on the necessity of personal commitment. During a sermon at a Brockton church last week, Haynes preached: "I don't know what they mean when they say, 'Chile, I've been goin' to church since I was a baby.' You may have a religious style, but it doesn't make you a Christian." That, in effect, is what 18th century Revival Preacher Jonathan Edwards used to tell the white folk of Massachusetts.

"My aim," says the Rev. Paul Moore, 35, minister of midtown Manhattan's Church of the Nazarene, "is to get the suburban church off its butt to save the cities. The government can't do it. Only the Gospel can." His aide, Bill Bray, gives short shrift to the "humanistic programs" run by traditional churches in the slums. As he sees it, they leave out the experience of God: "If I was like that I'd work for the government."

Moore's church has bought the once fashionable Lamb's Club in Manhattan's theater district and turned it into a multifaceted Gospel center. It houses a residence for young actors and artists, and a restaurant that doubles as a Christian supper club on weekends. (December attractions: a professional puppet show on the Nativity, and converted Folk Singer Noel Paul Stookey, formerly the middleman of Peter, Paul and Mary.) Moore is also trying to establish a helpful beachhead in an asphalt jungle of derelicts, runaways, lost teen-agers and prostitutes, sex parlors and porn shops. Says he: "God isn't into skywriting. He's into people coming to the end of themselves and admitting they're a mess and need help."

People are also paramount at Pastor Jimmy Allen's First Baptist Church in fading downtown San Antonio. In the past decade, it has grown from 7,000 to 9,000 members, 1,000 of them Chicanos. Allen, currently the honorific president of the Southern Baptists, combines Bible preaching with 20 ministries to meet every imaginable need. At the Fourth Street Inn restaurant, 55 volunteers offer low-pressure "witnessing" to paying customers and use the profits to offer lunch to anyone who is hungry, no questions asked. Upstairs, counselors are ready to chat. There is also a hostel for the homeless and a street ministry that trains young men to talk with troubled teenagers.

Help for federal convicts is the aim of ex-Lawyer Charles Colson, who served seven months in prison at Maxwell Air Force Base for obstructing justice in connection with the Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon-papers case. While he was behind bars, Colson bent rules to help fellow inmates; outside, he has dedicated himself to bringing them the hope of salvation. Brown leather Bible in hand, Colson, 46, now speaks in prisons and organizes week-long inmate seminars. His most dramatic program has brought 107 convicts to Washington for two weeks of Bible