It is indeed an Orwellian reversal we're dealing with rather than some ordinary lie. The lie of evangelical Christianity is shocking, appalling, and ridiculous--and that's the point, according to the evolutionary Handicap principle.

As with Goebbels's "big lie," the greater the lie, the greater the test of the follower's loyalty to the cause. That's how fraudsters can get away with their schemes, by tapping into our desires to be loyal and to submit to some greater power in a social hierarchy.