JBaldwin,
Check out the latest WHI show "Christianity vs. Liberalism":
The White Horse Inn: Know What You Believe & Why You Believe It
It doesn't precisely deal with that question but gives a partial answer as to how the "skeptics" disgust with much of American Evangelicalism is appropriate.
I think the problem with most Evangelicals is that they have a pagan notion of sin, suffering, and death and do not deal with the issue honestly. The honest approach, obviously, is not to place the Creator on trial for sin and death but to weep and mourn for it appropriately. There is a time for mourning under heaven. There is even a time to cry out to God for the effects of Sin that our first parents plunged us into and that we deserve as those who sin just like them.
If we would honestly mourn for sin and suffering then our testimony of the Grace of God is more genuine and real. It is not merely a constant refrain of some sappy "I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!"
If Americans had ever experienced the abject suffering and death that Europe did given the quality of "faith" that most have then the country would be mostly a morass of unbelief in the same way. Most Americans believe because they think of God as a Sugar Daddy.