Author Bruce Bawer, a layman within the Episcopal Church, has written a book with a provocative title. Stealing Jesus is a cautionary tale. It argues, convincingly, that within the past fifty years or so the clear intent of the Christian message has been taken hostage and perverted by elements within the American church community, groups determined to redefine what it means to be Christian.

Bawer’s main argument is that when a movement takes a classic tradition and reinvents it for its own purposes, dangerous things happen. In this case, says Bawer, extreme fundamentalist religiosity has turned good news into bad news. To put it into theological terms, the gospel — God’s healing, freeing, forgiving, life-giving love — is replaced with Law — a regimen requiring church folk to obey a set of…