The Washington Times yesterday ran a somewhat irritating piece in which evangelical leaders acknowledged that…well…there is no Evangelical Leader. No heir apparent, that is, to James Dobson’s mantle as leader of conservative Christians.

Mr. Dobson, 72, who resigned last week as board chairman of one of the country’s most influential evangelical organizations, is one of the last of a great generation of evangelical leaders.

Some have died: the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority founder; theologian Carl F.H. Henry; Florida pastor D. James Kennedy; Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright; and Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, who founded L’Abri Fellowship.

Others have either retired or have passed on the bulk of their duties, such as the Rev. Billy Graham, 90; televangelist Pat Robertson, 78; author and activist Tim LaHaye, 83; and Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson, 77.

To be sure, the major media played Dobson up as conservative Christians’ putative leader, though millions of actual Christians, and even Dobson himself, would disagree with such a monolithic idea. The reason the WT article is irritating isn’t the paper’s fault; it was the disturbing comments on what makes a conservative evangelical leader.

The Rutherford Institute’s John Whitehead said evangelicals lack a galvanizing issue:

“It used to be the pro-life movement,” he said, “but I am not sure there is an issue now. The issue evangelicals key on is the gay movement, but they have lost that issue. There is no cause for a leader to emerge in now.”

Hmmm…what about salvation, the poor, the widow, the hungry, the prisoners?

Rice University professor D. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power, a book on influential evangelicals, picked Family Research Council president Tony Perkins as the Dobson du jour:

“He is telegenic, he’s young, he has all the credentials for the conservative wing of American evangelicalism.”

Don’t get me wrong: I like Tony. It’s Lindsay’s shallow take on what makes a leader that chaps my hide, not only in terms of requisite qualities — why is young better? — but also the underlying idea that Christian conservatives will just sort of go, “Okay, that guy’s resume looks good. Everybody fall in!”

And another thing: Who says conservative evangelicals are looking for a Dobson successor in the first place?