The evangelical image of God is much like an unstable, untrustworthy alcoholic father, author and professor Douglas Frank said in a lecture Wednesday night at the Accenture Forum.

“There is an epidemic in our faith to not trust God in our heart, but this opinion is never voiced until something bad happens,” said Frank, a faculty member at the Oregon Extension of Houghton College.

Frank’s lecture focused on the deteriorating relationship evangelical Christians have with God, based on his experience with college students as a professor, counselor and practicing evangelical.

The lecture, “How’s Your Relationship with God? Exploring the Evangelical Family Secret,” was attended by about 70 students, faculty and community members. It began with Frank’s story about a backpacking trip he went on this summer with eight evangelical college students.

The first night of the trip, all eight students claimed to be satisfied with their relationship with God, Frank said. As the days passed, they began to trust each other enough to reveal doubts and fears in their faith.

“The evangelical family secret they discovered on that trip was that their relationship with God sucks,” Frank said.

The lecture was part three of four in this fall’s Shaffer-Mars Lecture series on questions concerning Jesus, the Bible and Christianity in 21st century evangelicalism.

Frank said that in the 20th century evangelicalism was threatened with secularization and many people leaving the faith.

In order to keep its power, Frank argued, the evangelical hierarchy had to present an image of an angry God, in order to drive a needy fear into the people. It is this fear, Frank said, that is actually driving followers away from the faith.

Brian Wentzel, a Weinberg and Music senior, thought Frank had an interesting analysis, but at times went too extreme.

“He was almost sarcastic in his exposition, greatly exaggerating and blanketing the issues within the evangelical faith,” Wentzel said.

Religion Prof. Richard Kieckhefer is on the lecture committee that selected this fall’s Evangelical speakers.

“Professor Frank made a passionate and eloquent statement about problems in Christian theology that are very real to many people,” Kieckhefer said.