Brad came across a video titled "why evangelicals are scary," that portrays all evangelicals as narrow dogmatic creationists. He wonders why it is acceptable to paint evangelicals with a broad brush when it is obviously not socially acceptable to do the same to other identity groups:
Imagine the response if other groups were similarly denounced. How about:
"Why Muslims are Scary"
"Why Jews are Scary"
"Why African-Americans are Scary"
"Why Asians are Scary"
"Why Disabled People are Scary"
"Why Gays are Scary"
"Why (fill in the blank) are Scary"
I offered the following in the comments:
The scariness of evangelicals is rooted in a complex social alchemy.
(1) No one really knows what evangelical means. Sure, there are theologians like Carl F. Henry who define evangelical as a theological orientation that is distinct from fundamentalism. There are others who frame evangelical more as a social identity only loosely based on theology. This later group participates in identity politics... one is an evangelical if...
- he or she attends a certain kind of church (the people they hang out with)
- engages in certain kinds of behavior (voting, small group, whatever)
- refrains from certain behaviors (drinking, smoking)
- and the the list could go on.
In this case evangelicals span all kinds of finer distinctions. Political leaders like Falwell, Dobson, and the icon formerly known as Ted Haggard cynically exploit this identity movement for political power. And lets not kid ourselves about those leaders and their role. No matter what they call themselves, they are not ministers. They are political hacks. They have done a great disservice to people of faith and drive a wedge between the community of believers and those of us looking in from the outside.
(2) The entire debate in what James Davidson Hunter once called Culture Wars pits true believers of mutually antagonistic worldviews in a debate that is doomed to escalate. What is ironic is that both of these sides gain strength through their perception of persecution. That the implications of this battle are for the meaning of life, the universe, and everything (hat tip to Douglas Adams) only intensifies their resolve. Just to take one example, evangelicals (as an identity movement) are threatened by same-sex unions. This undermines a core principle of their identity construct. At the same time, gays and lesbians see this reaction as a threat to their existence. Both sides feed on the persecution of the other as well as feel persecuted by their opposite. And the cycle continues on and on. Hunter was examining these dynamics two decades ago, Christian Smith studied this in the mid 90s, and little if anything has changed today.
So to come back to Brad's original point. The left's (for lack of a better term... Hunter used the term progressive to describe this constellation) singling out of evangelicals (defined loosely) is anchored to an institutionalized squabble that appears not to be leaving anytime soon. The other groups you mention are not as tightly connected to this construct. Now, if and when any of those groups gain marketshare in the identity politics arena, I suppose they will join the fray.
