Observers today tend to forget that evangelical voters by the millions, especially but not solely in the "solid South", were once the backbone of the great Democratic majorities of the New Deal era. In any case, there is no area of life in which most journalists are less informed and less experienced than in the religion of their fellow citizens.

Here I am trying to make two points. The first is about the growing wealth, learning, and sophistication of American evangelicals (and other religious people). The second is about the swelling rebellion of the broad middle against the excessive and elitist secularisation of American life, secularisation from the top down, not the bottom up.

My advice is: watch Iowa. Great movements deep under the surface are stirring there, and are being given strong local leadership and modest but significant resources. Pastors who steadily resisted the Moral Majority of the 1980s and other voices for political activism among religious people have reached a breaking point, and are becoming active with a fresh determination.

And stop looking at Iowans and others in the great religious middle through the bigoted eyes of H.L. Mencken who described them as ignoramuses, yokels and apes dragging their knuckles on the ground. Don't underestimate the ever-higher levels of education and the complex leadership experiences of the American clergy and laity. America today is home to the most highly educated and technically expert body of Christians seen on earth. One of the most modernised nations in the world has more in common with the religious Third World than other secular nations do, and an under-appreciated pitch of education and practical success.