To outsiders, conservative Christians seem at the peak of their influence.

Books by evangelical pastors Rick Warren and Joel Osteen are multimillion best-sellers, megachurches are building satellite congregations to meet demand, conservatives control Congress and, most importantly, religious advocates helped put a Bible-believer in the White House.

Yet, many evangelicals still consider themselves a persecuted majority, hounded by “secular fundamentalists” intent on driving religion from public life.

Opponents find this view baffling. Bill Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University Divinity School in North Carolina and a critic of the religious right, says evangelicals consider themselves oppressed only because some Americans disagree with them.

“They want to be culture-dominant,” Leonard said.

But many evangelical leaders say conservative Protestants and Roman Catholics continue to be maligned by some of the most influential institutions in the country – the media, public schools, universities and Hollywood – and they argue that societal demands for tolerance are extended to every group but them.

“There is an attempt by the secularists to take Jesus Christ and to take God out of every aspect of our society,” said the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn, addresses a crowd via teleconferencing at an evangelical Christian rally called Justice Sunday in Louisville, Ky., in this April 24, 2005, file photo. One purpose of the rally was to protest the filibuster tactic used by Democrats to stall President Bush's picks for the federal court.

This worldview was on display this month at the Justice Sunday: II event, which enlisted Christians in the fight for more sympathetic federal judges.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the advocacy group that helped organize the gathering in a Nashville church, contended that limits the U.S. Supreme Court has placed on religion in public schools have meant “that our children don’t have a right to pray.”

William Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, told the crowd he was “tired of being told” that if faith informs your thinking, “you’re a second-class citizen.”

John Green, an expert on religion and politics at the University of Akron, said evangelicals who feel slandered are responding partly to the added attention from their role in the presidential race.

“Their very success has brought extra criticism that feeds this sense of being persecuted,” Green said. “Before, they felt a lack of respect. Now, they feel some hostility.”

And despite their growing political clout, evangelicals have not achieved many of the policy changes they consider key, Green said, such as outlawing abortion. They worry that politicians who benefit from Christian support will not stand with them on these major issues.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist recently angered conservatives when he broke from the Bush administration to support expanding embryonic stem cell research. Frist was a speaker at the first Justice Sunday in April but was not invited to this month’s rally in his home state of Tennessee because of his position on the issue.

Evangelicals perceive themselves as especially powerless in American society, which continues to tolerate behavior traditionalists consider immoral, such as homosexuality.

Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, a top evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif., said loss of influence in the broader culture was behind the frustration that persists no matter how many lawmakers Christian advocates help elect.

“The idea that you are at the center of society, you’re a foundational institution, there’s been a move away from that,” Gibbs said.