It took a decade, but historian William J. Schultz’s study of Colorado Springs’ evangelical community is done. “Jesus Springs: Evangelical Capitalism and the Fate of an American City” comes out Oct. 7.

“Will’s book brings together religion, capitalism, the Cold War and the growth of Colorado Springs after World War II in a powerful way,” said Paul Harvey of the Center for the Study of Evangelicalism at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, where Schultz will speak April 3.

Schultz originally thought he would cover the 1990s, culture wars, Focus on the Family, the battle over gay rights and Amendment 2. But as he spent more time researching, he broadened his inquiry.

The book now spans eight decades, starting in the 1940s and 1950s with the arrival of The Navigators and Young Life, the first two large international evangelical ministries to move to the Springs. The book ends with a chapter on Andrew Wommack’s call for his followers to “take over” Woodland Park.

It’s a story that “brings together conservative religion, conservative politics, laissez-faire economics and the role of the military,” said Schultz, who was raised Catholic and is an assistant professor of American religions at University of Chicago Divinity School.

Military and spiritual partners

Schultz begins his story with the decade of 1945-1955, a period of flourishing for Protestant Christianity across the U.S.:

“[W]orship 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.”

In the Springs, the growth of the Army’s Camp Carson, established in 1942 after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, led to an influx of soldiers that fueled rapid population growth. By 1955, construction had begun on the Air Force Academy.

Leaders of The Navigators and Young Life said God had brought them to the Springs, and 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.

“In America, God fearing and democracy loving citizens have joined in charitable enterprise to relive our government of the burden of … training our youth to resist the evils of Communism and to fight for the survival of Christian democracy,” said Young Life in the 1950s.

In their fundraising letters, ministries described the Springs as a “miracle place” that would empower their work.

The influx

The city saw a major influx of more than 50 evangelical ministries between 1980 and 1995. Schultz says there were plenty of secular reasons for these ministry relocations, including cheap land, cheap labor, low taxes, few labor unions and a successful recruiting effort by the city’s Economic Development Corp.

In addition, Young Life waged a legal battle to secure tax exemptions for its camp properties throughout the state that was supported by other ministries. These efforts “made Colorado one of the most generous states in the country in terms of granting tax exemptions to religious organizations,” Schultz writes.

Things changed with the 1991 arrival of Focus, which engaged in partisan politics and backed 1992’s Amendment 2 to overturn gay rights laws in the state. Schultz describes efforts in 1994 by local activists to promote anti-gay rights legislation nationally by organizing meetings of national groups at The Navigators’ Glen Eyrie castle. But after the Supreme Court ruled Amendment 2 unconstitutional, efforts to export the “Colorado model” fizzled.

Schultz says evangelical ministries employed 4.6% of Springs workers in the 1990s, a concentration that wasn’t big enough to dominate the local economy but was big enough to convince some locals that evangelicals dominated the social environment, to the city’s detriment.

A spiritual NORAD

Schultz researched decades of religion at the Air Force Academy and describes alternating periods of “establishment” (when academy 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).

And he devotes a chapter, “The Invisible War,” to Ted Haggard, Peter Wagner and other local leaders who focused on spiritual warfare, established the World Prayer Center at Haggard’s New Life Church and portrayed the Springs as a “spiritual NORAD” where Satan’s power had been broken.

“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.”

But this version of evangelicalism faded after 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,” writes Schultz.

“Spiritual warfare was too flimsy a foundation upon which to build an empire.”

The book concludes by observing that the era he describes in “Jesus Springs” has passed. The evangelical movement has moved on from “cultural persuasion” to “political power.”

In an interview, he said the center of gravity has moved to political activist groups such as Arizona-based Turning Point USA, whose founder Charlie Kirk was murdered Sept. 10.

Thanking local sources

Schultz said researching and writing the book was painful. The depth and breadth of resources he found while researching in local archives a decade ago gave him headaches. He completed his doctoral thesis for Princeton University in 2017 but said it “was not very good.”

He pretty much started over to write the book but took so long that two of his editors at the University of North Carolina Press retired before he completed his manuscript.

Schultz regrets the “pain” he experienced in the work but is thankful to a lengthy list of locals, leaders and archivists whose insights and information are cited in his acknowledgments and footnotes, including dozens of articles written by me and other reporters at The Gazette.