I remember in the 60s and early to mid 70s when the Evangelicals were moderately liberal. I remember working for the Carter Campaign in 76 and worked side by side with many Evangelicals because Carter was Evangelical. It used to be a very good thing, even a liberal thing to be Evangelical. That is until the Fundies Hijacked the Evangelicals and now they are lumped together. It was a bad merger, for sure.
But there are still liberal to moderate Evangelicals, like Jimmy Carter, my mother and others but they are few and far between.!!!! They talk about how the Right wing religious nuts hijacked their religion and their country.
People like Falwell always been corrupt and in bed with the GOP however. I remember him from the early 1970s. He called himself a Fundamentalist Christian and was opposed to the Evangelicals of the 1970s who were comprised of a number of war protestors, hippies, and the Jesus Freaks as they were called. Then Falwell set about to HIJACK the Evangelical name and he sadly succeeded. It used to be Evangelicals tended to be Democrats in the late 60s-mid 70s..and support Jimmy Carter for President...not Falwell though. He made excuses for Nixon and supported corporations and was one of the proponents of this gospel of Prosperity nonsense which has no Biblical basis.
I used to be an Evangelical until 1980 when Reagan and Falwell hijacked it!!!!!! Evangelicals used to be compassionate and kind and many of my fellow church members were more liberal than myself and my family at the time. Man, how that has changed.
I remember the exact moment I knew the Evangelical faith had been hijacked by the Fundies. I went to an informal, folk music Sunday church service. There was an anti choice, anti abortion, film and I walked out. I saw the church MOVE away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ and move towards Old Testament Retribution and Vicious Judgmental, Arrogant, rules.