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Jesus Springs: Evangelical Capitalism and the Fate of an American City
In the years after World War II, American evangelicals flocked to the once-sleepy mountain town of Colorado Springs. Drawn by cheap property, beautiful scenery, and the encouragement of civic leaders who saw religion as a path to prosperity, evangelicals planted new churches and built religious nonprofits with a global reach. They preached their message in churches and schools, even in the United States Air Force Academy. Their efforts transformed the city into what some called the “Evangelical Vatican” and others dubbed “Jesus Springs.” But in the early 1990s, as the evangelical movement shifted its focus from saving souls to securing political and economic power, relations between the movement and the local community fractured. Today the city faces the prospect of reinvention, grappling with the challenges of America’s fast-changing religious landscape.
Jesus Springs reveals the power and influence of American evangelicalism within the nation’s spiritual economy. Linking the Cold War and the culture wars, William J. Schultz tracks how a deluge of defense spending helped Colorado Springs become the organizational heart of American evangelicalism. This story, taking place as evangelicalism transformed from a primarily religious movement into the social and political force we know today, illuminates the movement’s potential impact as its participants seek ever-greater power.
Jesus Springs reveals the power and influence of American evangelicalism within the nation’s spiritual economy. Linking the Cold War and the culture wars, William J. Schultz tracks how a deluge of defense spending helped Colorado Springs become the organizational heart of American evangelicalism. This story, taking place as evangelicalism transformed from a primarily religious movement into the social and political force we know today, illuminates the movement’s potential impact as its participants seek ever-greater power.
226 pages, Hardcover
Published October 7, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 15, 2026
Picked up a fair amount of detail about the history of my hometown of Colorado Springs which, as Schultz's title suggests, managed to acquire a reputation (partially earned) as a stronghold of right wing Christian evangelicalism. He's particularly good on the intersection of economic and religious crosscurrents during the early Cold War era. In addition, I got a clearer picture of the influx of evangelical organizations during the 1980s and 1990s.
But to fulfill its promise, the book needed to be quite a bit longer than it is. First, it ends abruptly, taking the story into the first decade of the 21st century and then pretty much dropping it with Ted Haggard's ignominious fall from grace. The brief coda set in Woodland Park suggests how Schultz sees things now but doesn't follow through. Second, while the book claims to be about the city as a whole, it's really about a specific subculture. I've been telling people for decades that Colorado Springs is really three cities on one dot on the map: a fairly progressive countercultural sphere centered on Colorado College and Manitou Springs; a working class military town focused on Fort Carson; and the evangelical nightmare--which gives away my prejudice--to the north including the Air Force Academy. (I grew up in what's effectively a border area that has changed quite a bit since I left Colorado in 1974). Whether or not you share my valuation, Schultz's Springs is focused mostly on the third. That's exacerbated by the fact that there's almost nothing about the relatively ordinary folks who live in the Springs and how the forces play out. Finally, I wish he'd done a lot more to parse the relationship between the new evangelicals and the city's older established churches, both protestant and Catholic.
It's by no means a bad book and I'm glad I read it, but it's mostly material I'd like to see developed further.
But to fulfill its promise, the book needed to be quite a bit longer than it is. First, it ends abruptly, taking the story into the first decade of the 21st century and then pretty much dropping it with Ted Haggard's ignominious fall from grace. The brief coda set in Woodland Park suggests how Schultz sees things now but doesn't follow through. Second, while the book claims to be about the city as a whole, it's really about a specific subculture. I've been telling people for decades that Colorado Springs is really three cities on one dot on the map: a fairly progressive countercultural sphere centered on Colorado College and Manitou Springs; a working class military town focused on Fort Carson; and the evangelical nightmare--which gives away my prejudice--to the north including the Air Force Academy. (I grew up in what's effectively a border area that has changed quite a bit since I left Colorado in 1974). Whether or not you share my valuation, Schultz's Springs is focused mostly on the third. That's exacerbated by the fact that there's almost nothing about the relatively ordinary folks who live in the Springs and how the forces play out. Finally, I wish he'd done a lot more to parse the relationship between the new evangelicals and the city's older established churches, both protestant and Catholic.
It's by no means a bad book and I'm glad I read it, but it's mostly material I'd like to see developed further.
December 15, 2025
This book is, to judge by its citations section, extensively researched and an accurate and to the best of the author's ability unbiased depiction of the Evangelical migration into Colorado Springs and an explanation of how it came to pass. As a one-time resident of Woodland Park it was interesting to see it come up, not once but twice, in the 150-odd pages of the book.
What it does not do is offer any thesis about why it happened, beyond the confluence of money and land and military presence in the region, or what such a thing happening means, or how the explosion and concentration of Evangelical networks impacted culture within the Springs or across the country, or what we should take away from the rise (and apparent fall) of the Rocky Mountain Vatican. It has no point of view. Maybe that was beyond the scope of the book's intention. But it feels incomplete, more like an assemblage of facts than like a book claiming to address the "fate" of Colorado Springs. It concludes precipitously and with little confidence in its prediction that wealthy ministry organizations were losing influence at a rapid clip and would soon return Colorado Springs to a quiet mountain town, but it doesn't have anything to say about any of it other than "it happened".
What it does not do is offer any thesis about why it happened, beyond the confluence of money and land and military presence in the region, or what such a thing happening means, or how the explosion and concentration of Evangelical networks impacted culture within the Springs or across the country, or what we should take away from the rise (and apparent fall) of the Rocky Mountain Vatican. It has no point of view. Maybe that was beyond the scope of the book's intention. But it feels incomplete, more like an assemblage of facts than like a book claiming to address the "fate" of Colorado Springs. It concludes precipitously and with little confidence in its prediction that wealthy ministry organizations were losing influence at a rapid clip and would soon return Colorado Springs to a quiet mountain town, but it doesn't have anything to say about any of it other than "it happened".
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews