Historian tells how Colorado Springs became ‘evangelical Vatican’

Colorado Springs is home to dozens of major international evangelical parachurch organizations, many of them arriving here between 1980 and 1995. But the story really begins between 1945 and 1955, says a historian’s new book.

William J. Schultz’s Jesus Springs: Evangelical Capitalism and the Fate of an American City tells a story that “brings together conservative religion, conservative politics, laissez-faire economics and the role of the military,” said Schultz, an assistant professor of American religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Schultz originally planned to cover the 1990s, known for the arrival of Focus on the Family and the onset of the culture war over gay rights.

But the more research he did, the more he knew he needed to start with the decade after World War II, which brought prosperity, patriotism, two military facilities, and two major evangelical ministries to the city at the foot of Pikes Peak.

The Army’s Camp Carson was established in 1942 after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and 1955 saw the beginning of construction on the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

The same period saw the arrival of The Navigators and Young Life, two influential parachurch ministries. Fundraising letters claimed God had brought them to the Springs, a “miracle place” that would empower their work. The city was named for a number of mineral and hot springs in the area that were thought to have healing power.

Once here, they worked with local pastors to serve the military community and promote godliness, patriotism and faith in a Christian America, all while avoiding partisan politics.

Young Life said it was joining the effort of “training our youth to resist the evils of communism and to fight for the survival of Christian democracy.”

In a lengthy passage, Schultz describes the unprecedented flourishing for Protestant Christianity across the U.S. from 1945-1955:

Worship attendance soared, while religious denominations undertook massive construction programs which dotted the landscape with new churches, schools and synagogues. The federal government encouraged this revival: Congress voted to add ‘under God’ to the Pledge of Allegiance; multiple senators and representatives introduced constitutional amendments declaring the United States to be a Christian nation; Dwight D. Eisenhower attended the first national prayer breakfast and gave his stamp of approval to private religious projects like the ‘Declaration of Dependence on God.’ Many political and military leaders believed that this revival ought to be cultivated in the armed forces; American soldiers, they thought, needed religious instruction to stiffen their resolve in the war against global communism.

The great evangelical influx happened between 1980 and 1995, a period that saw more than 50 evangelical ministries relocate to what locals call “The Springs.”

Schultz cites secular reasons for the migration, including cheap land, cheap labor, low taxes, few labor unions and a successful recruiting effort by the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

Plus, legal victories by Young Life in securing tax exemptions for its camp properties “made Colorado one of the most generous states in the country in terms of granting tax exemptions to religious organizations,” Schultz writes.

At first, parachurch groups didn’t meddle in local politics, but everything changed with the 1991 arrival of Focus on the Family, which promoted 1992’s Amendment 2, which overturned gay rights laws in the state. Amendment 2 led to boycotts of the state, but Focus continued to promote the “Colorado model” until the Supreme Court ruled Amendment 2 unconstitutional.

In the 1990s, evangelical ministries employed 4.6% of Colorado Springs workers. That wasn’t enough to dominate the local scene, but some locals feared it was enough to harm the city’s freedoms and quality of life.

Since 1958, Colorado Springs has been home to NORAD, or North American Aerospace Defense Command, where U.S. and Canadian soldiers support a vast aerospace warning system.

Shultz’s Jesus Springs offers a lively chapter on connections between military and religious groups in the city, including a band of charismatics who described the city as a “spiritual NORAD.”

Anyone who has read news coverage of the U.S. Air Force Academy’s policies on religion may recall stories about zealous evangelical leaders promoting their faith to their cadets. Schultz reveals a much more interesting and nuanced assessment.

As he sees it, the academy has seen alternating periods of “establishment” (when leadership required mandatory chapel attendance and promoted evangelical religion, often with local ministries’ help) and periods of “disestablishment” (when cadets had more control over their own spiritual lives).

God’s own NORAD became a thing when megachurch pastor Ted Haggard and Fuller Seminary professor Peter Wagner helped establish the World Prayer Center at Haggard’s New Life Church.

They portrayed the Springs as a “spiritual NORAD” where Satan’s power had been broken thanks to local leaders who focused on spiritual warfare between good and evil.

“God has brought Colorado Springs into a remarkable season for his glory,” said Wagner, who claimed God had “installed a divine magnet to build a concentration of ministries that will serve his kingdom on the spiritual front lines as we move into a new millennium.”

This chapter in the Springs’ religious history ended with Haggard’s dramatic fall in a sex and drug scandal and the departures of Wagner and other spiritual warfare generals.

“Haggard and Wagner’s dream of making the city into a ‘Spiritual NORAD’ proved hollow,” Schultz writes. “Spiritual warfare was too flimsy a foundation upon which to build an empire.”

Jesus Springs concludes with a chapter on Andrew Wommack’s call for his followers to “take over” Woodland Park, a mountain city west of Colorado Springs.

Shultz concludes the big times are over for Colorado Springs’ evangelical scene. He says the evangelical movement has moved on from “cultural persuasion” to “political power.” The current center of gravity is politically activist groups like Arizona-based Turning Point USA, whose founder, Charlie Kirk, was murdered Sept. 10.

Shultz, who was raised Catholic, is glad he took a longer view of Colorado Springs’ religious history, even though the process was a pain and two of his editors at the University of North Carolina Press retired before he completed his manuscript.

 

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