Jeff Sharlet, based on discussions with congregants from New Life Church on the northern edge of Colorado Springs, noted a pattern regarding evangelical perceptions of the city. According to these suburban parishioners, [c]ities are especially dangerous. It is not so much the large populations, with their uneasy mix of sinner and saved, that make Christian conservatives leery of urban areas. Even downtown Colorado Springs, presumably as godly as any big town in America, struck the New Lifers as unclean. Whenever I asked where to eat, they would warn me away from downtown’s neat little grid of
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