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Q. A lot of people would say that the power of religious Fundamentalism in the U.S. peaked in the 1980s. Do you agree?
A. In the late '80s and early '90s, we're seeing a whole new wave of Christians come in, through two main venues. One is the Rescue movement. It brought in thousands and thousands of people who were not involved in the religious right or the Moral Majority. The other was the Rev. Pat Robertson's presidential campaign. Robertson brought out of the pew and into the process tens of thousands of new people, many of whom are still involved. Their full impact will not be felt until the 1996 election, the 2000 election, 2004.
The pollution and degradation of this culture did not happen overnight, and neither will our ability to reclaim it and reform it happen overnight. It's going to take a good half-generation to turn things around. The church for two full generations has been taking its brightest and its best and saying to them, Be a pastor or be a missionary. It's time we took our brightest and our best and said, Be a lawyer, be a judge, be a Governor, be the dean of a university, be the editor of a newspaper. We're involved in a cultural civil war. Right now there are very few Christians involved in the trench warfare. Part of my mission is to challenge Christian families to deliberately raise up their children to serve and to lead, in every walk of life.