the more young people are starting to abandon it. Even believers are loath to self identify as Christians since the ugly coalition between televangelists and their followers and right wing government has become a known quantity. Sensible people want absolutely no part of it, and since all Christians are being unfairly lumped into that coalition, they've abandoned self identification as such.

50 years ago, the word implied a certain standard of ethical behavior that all people who identified with it at least attempted to achieve. Then came the televangelists pushing a particularly unholy combination of Southern Baptistry, Dispensationalist Calvinism and prosperity theology and even the pretense of trying to emulate Christ's ideals of tolerance and charity was abandoned. Once you were "saved," you could do any horrible thing to other people here on earth that you wanted, your ticket to heaven was punched.

The past 40 years have damaged the brand name horribly. I sincerely hope that isn't the case permanently, and I hope the mainstream religious figures at long last repudiate the nonsense coming from the pompadoured frauds on "Christian" television and their pet politicians. It's overdue.