Progressive Americans could be forgiven for thinking that things had turned screwy-or scary-in 2004. Everywhere one looked after the presidential elections, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, who many thought had flamed out with his uncompromisingly conservative religious positions and ubiquitous media role since the Reagan years, was all over the airwaves. One night, he was explaining to Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball the failings of an ad campaign by the United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant denomination, that depicted a church open to gays and lesbians-insinuating, according to Falwell and colleagues, that evangelical churches in America were bigoted. Another day he was on Meet the Press debating with progressive evangelical Christian minister Jim Wallis about the role of religion, politics, law, and society.

The rush to engage Falwell, Reverend James Dobson, and other leading lights of the Christian right as interpreters of the American public's attitudes abou...

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