What Newsweek's Bible Cover Story Gets Wrong About Evangelicals

What Newsweek Gets Wrong About Evangelicals
TO GO WITH AFP STORYPeople attend a mass of the Assembly of God church, in Goiania, Goias State, Brazil, on May 19, 2013. The election of evangelical minister Marco Feliciano as president of the House of Deputies' commission of human rights and minorities, is seen as a sign of the growing influence of evangelicals in Congress, where they have 67 deputies ot of a total 513, and in Brazilian politics in general. Evangelicals count 565 million adherents and represent more than one-fourth of the world's Christians, according to French researcher Sebastien Fath. AFP PHOTO / Evaristo SA (Photo credit should read EVARISTO SA/AFP/Getty Images)
TO GO WITH AFP STORYPeople attend a mass of the Assembly of God church, in Goiania, Goias State, Brazil, on May 19, 2013. The election of evangelical minister Marco Feliciano as president of the House of Deputies' commission of human rights and minorities, is seen as a sign of the growing influence of evangelicals in Congress, where they have 67 deputies ot of a total 513, and in Brazilian politics in general. Evangelicals count 565 million adherents and represent more than one-fourth of the world's Christians, according to French researcher Sebastien Fath. AFP PHOTO / Evaristo SA (Photo credit should read EVARISTO SA/AFP/Getty Images)

(CNN) "They wave their Bibles at passersby, screaming their condemnations," writes Kurt Eichenwald of evangelical Christians.

"They fall on their knees, worshipping at the base of granite monuments to the Ten Commandments...They are God's frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch."

So begins Eichenwald's recent cover story for Newsweek, "The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin," which the author claims is meant to enlighten readers about the true nature and content of the Bible, but which almost certainly alienates the very people it aims to persuade by caricaturing and mocking them in the opening paragraphs.

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