The era of the religious Right is over. Its collapse is part of a larger decline of a style of ideological conservatism that reached high points in 1980 and 1994 but suffered a series of decisive – and I believe fatal – setbacks during George W. Bush’s second term. The end of the religious Right does not signal a decline in evangelical Christianity. On the contrary, it is a sign of a new reformation among Christians – Warren and Cizik are representative figures – who are disentangling their great movement from a political machine. This will require liberals and conservatives alike to abandon their sometimes narrow views of who evangelicals are and what they believe.
E.J. Dionne Jr., Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008), 4-5.