A discussion between Rev. Jerry Fawell and Jim Wallis of Sojourners is under scrutiny at Media Matters. The two men were on a Fox network show last week.

Falwell called Wallis’s claim that “evangelicals around the world were against the war in Iraq” “baloney” and remarked: “You could fit your [antiwar evangelical] crowd in a phone booth.” After Wallis told Falwell that “there are evangelical Christians who don’t share your pro-war views,” Falwell replied, “I know — you and William Sloane Coffin.” Coffin is a longtime peace activist and former Yale University chaplain.

In fact, many evangelical leaders openly opposed the Iraq war, and a March 2003 poll by the Pew Research Center indicated that although most American evangelicals supported removing Saddam Hussein from power, less than half “favored the use of force if our major allies did not want to join us.”

There are some reports to back up different claims, but I find the conclusions interesting.
First, they deal with leaders, not none leaders.
Many leaders were ambivalent about going to war, many were ambivalent about taking an open position on the conflict.

They said some evangelical leaders question whether Saddam Hussein’s regime poses the immediate threat to American security the Bush administration claims. And they said other leaders are fearful for the safety of hundreds of thousands of Christians in Iraq and thousands of missionaries working in Muslim-led countries around the world.

Other observers say the silence of evangelicals does not necessarily mean that they do not hold strong positions on the president’s policy. According to this view, evangelical leaders who favor military action are afraid that public statements to that effect will further inflame anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world — while those against a war worry that they will be labeled as “liberals” because their arguments closely follow Protestant and Catholic leaders who oppose a U.S. attack.