DRIVE-BY EVANGELISM, LITERALLY: “Religious protestors invade fraternity tailgates.” The video was posted, then later taken down, at CheapMissionsTrips.com.

Might I suggest that an alternative approach might have been more effective than a bullhorn?

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RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE: “The Faith of Joe Lieberman.”

Lieberman respects Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, two Republican presidential contenders who have spoken up about their faith on the trail. “I know this got controversial recently, with Governor Perry and Congresswoman Bachmann. But they didn’t give up their First Amendment right to free expression and freedom of religion when they decided to run for president,” he says. “I like it when a candidate, if they feel comfortable, talks about their faith. It’s very interesting to me; it tells me more about the candidate, giving me one more factor to evaluate about what kind of president they would be.”

“Others may be turned off by it, even by the very fact that you’re talking about it, or the way you’re articulating it,” Lieberman says. “That’s the risk you take.” But he emphasizes that while some may find Perry’s public prayers troubling, or Bachmann’s Christian declarations strange, many Americans find such words “reassuring.” In this sense, he urges all politicians, if they are so inclined, to speak up, even if they are not religious experts, in order to make politics more hospitable to religious discussions.

“This is classic America,” Lieberman says. “The Constitution promises freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The whole history of the country is intertwined with religion. The founding documents are premised on a world view, actually a very creationist world view.” Since then, “We have found a way to invite religion into the public square without pushing all but one religion out. It’s remarkable.”

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WILD-EYED THEOCRATS? “The red (state) scare.”

So far, mainstream articles and commentary have been more insinuative than blatant. Bachmann + Schaeffer + Rushdoony = Reconstructionism? Perry + International House of Prayer + “The Call” = theocracy? The line between these dots may be more tangential than straight, but the implication is clear: Watch out for evangelical politicians with ties to anyone who ever said anything about faith and government.

Reader comments are more blunt, and no description fits them better than Hofstadter’s “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy”: The Christians are coming! The revenge of the Red States! Seems a little paranoid. Maybe even McCarthy-ish?

With 14 months until Election Day, we have plenty of time to come to conclusions about candidates. But “Christian dominionism” (temptingly elastic in definition) is probably only beginning its run on the public stage. If either Perry or Bachmann is the Republican nominee, the Obama campaign will likely pour part of its reported billion-dollar war chest into painting them as wild-eyed theocrats.

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PRO-LIFE, ANTI-DEATH PENALTY: “Capital Punishment, Sanctity of Life, and Human Dignity.”

Here, though, is the deepest reason to be opposed to capital punishment. From the practical perspective of an agent reflecting on those human goods that give point to human action and that underwrite possibilities of human flourishing, such as the goods of life, friendship, marriage, and personal integrity, we should recognize the following: each of the basic goods, in each of its possible instantiations, considered just in itself, only gives us reason for action, only is capable of motivating us for action on its behalf, and only is an aspect of genuine human well-being. Just in itself, action directly (intentionally) contrary to any human good makes no sense, is void of practical intelligibility. The same is also true of action against the life of even a seriously degenerate criminal. Insofar as he is a human being, his life gives us reason, and only gives us reason, for its protection and promotion.

I’m not sure I agree with this conclusion, but I found the argument thought-provoking.

And, apropos of that article, read this: “Like Rick Perry, most ‘pro-life’ Americans okay with death penalty.”

While Perry is out of step with the solid majority (56 percent) of Americans who say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, his support for capital punishment is widely shared. And while the tensions inherent in his anti-abortion/pro-death penalty position may raise the eyebrows of some Catholic theologians and students of semantics, they appear to be settled tensions strongly held by an overwhelming number of Republicans and even most Americans. Given these facts, it seems unlikely Perry will face much of a challenge on the question of the consistency of his stance on these positions.

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ARE THE KIDS ALRIGHT? “If It Feels Right…”

Many of these shortcomings will sort themselves out as these youngsters get married, have kids, enter a profession or fit into more clearly defined social roles. Institutions will inculcate certain habits. Broader moral horizons will be forced upon them. But their attitudes at the start of their adult lives do reveal something about American culture. For decades, writers from different perspectives have been warning about the erosion of shared moral frameworks and the rise of an easygoing moral individualism.

Allan Bloom and Gertrude Himmelfarb warned that sturdy virtues are being diluted into shallow values. Alasdair MacIntyre has written about emotivism, the idea that it’s impossible to secure moral agreement in our culture because all judgments are based on how we feel at the moment.

Charles Taylor has argued that morals have become separated from moral sources. People are less likely to feel embedded on a moral landscape that transcends self. James Davison Hunter wrote a book called “The Death of Character.” Smith’s interviewees are living, breathing examples of the trends these writers have described.

In most times and in most places, the group was seen to be the essential moral unit. A shared religion defined rules and practices. Cultures structured people’s imaginations and imposed moral disciplines. But now more people are led to assume that the free-floating individual is the essential moral unit. Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.

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THE GUARANTEE OF OBEDIENCE? “Abstinence Is Not Rocket Science.”

…I do see something in her account that’s familiar to this evangelical Christian, an appealing but dangerous belief: Obedience will get you what you want.

Few realize just how dangerous, how wrong, and how widespread that belief is. But we Christian singles have reason to know it. It’s been taught to us from the time we’re teens or even preteens: “Practice abstinence, and someday the right partner will come along and you’ll be so glad you waited!” The obvious implication is that your obedience guarantees the promise of that right partner.

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A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE: “Does Evolutionary Science Disprove the Faith?”

Polygenism is, to be sure, the death of simplistic fundamentalist and sola scriptura approaches to human origins, but that’s about it. And sola scriptura has been dead for anybody familiar with the ancient Christian approach to Scripture ever since Paul told the Thessalonians to hold fast to the traditions they had received, whether by word of mouth or by letter (2 Thess 2:15).

Like I said, this is a Catholic perspective. From a Protestant (sola scriptura) perspective, see C. John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care.

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BIG BROTHER IS AN IDIOT: “‘Racists’ aged THREE: Toddlers among thousands of children accused of bigotry after name-calling.”

Schools are forced to report the language to education authorities, which keep a register of incidents.

Although the Department for Education recently pledged to cut unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy, it has given no guidance on such ‘offences’.

In total, 34,000 nursery, primary and secondary pupils were effectively classed as bigots because of anti-bullying rules.

The school can keep the pupil’s name and ‘crime’ on file.

The record can be passed from primaries to secondaries or when a pupil moves between schools.

And if schools are asked for a pupil reference by a future employer or a university, the record could be used as the basis for it, meaning the pettiest of incidents has the potential to blight a child for life.

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SMALL GROUP MINISTRY HELPS: “New Questions for Measuring Group Success.”

Here are some MissioRelate questions to help guide you as you assess your own group:

Missional Communion

• To what degree is our group experiencing God’s presence when they gather?
• What specific actions are individuals taking to simplify their lives so that they have time to share in community life with others?
• What kinds of sacrifices are people making to be shaped by God for leadership?
• How are people who are not Jesus followers experiencing the presence of God through the group?

Missional Relating

• How is our group working through conflict and difficult relational situations?
• How frequently are we sharing meals together outside of official meetings?
• How are group members sacrificing their personal priorities for the sake of other people in our group?
• How are people who are not Jesus followers experiencing the relationships that are distinct from the world through our group?

Missional Engagement

• How is our group being led to minister outside of predetermined expectations and meet needs spontaneously?
• How are people using their money in unique ways to invest in redemption?
• How is our group (and individuals within our group) investing in relationships in our neighborhood?
• How is our group (and individuals within our group) embracing the poor and seeking to bring redemption to social outcasts?
• How are people who are not Jesus followers encouraged to participate in the process of serving the world together?

When church leaders and groups start asking these questions, they discover they are responsible for a different set of outcomes. Instead of the typical or normal expectations about meeting attendance, group growth and other external factors, they expect to produce a life that generates a new social fabric, to use Block’s terminology. The group sees itself as the context for the creation of an alternative future.

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ENLIGHTENMENT ESCHATOLOGY: “Secular End Times and Apocalyptic ‘Roosters.’”

We may be tempted to dismiss the [Xhosa] Cattle-Killings as superstitious or primitive, though millennial patterns appear just as frequently in self-proclaimed “rational” cultures. The reason we don’t tend to see it that way, Landes argues, is that the “anti-religious discourse” of historians has caused them to miss “the parallels between religious millennialism and the ideology of the Enlightenment.” While medieval Christians looked to God to bring peace and equality to the social order, Enlightenment thinkers like Kant believed that the application of reason would bring freedom and “maturity” to mankind.

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AMONG OTHERS: “Do atheists have a sexism problem?”

No one is suggesting the freethought community is more sexist than other segments of society—after all, the most famous American atheist, the late Madalyn Murray O’Hair, was a woman.

Nonetheless, the incident has struck a chord, perhaps because atheists and other skeptics pride themselves on reason and logic—intellectual exercises that theoretically compute to equality.

The problem, they agree, is long-standing. Women veterans of the movement recall meetings in the 1970s where 80 percent of attendees were men.

“I think the essential problem that women have in the movement is that they are greatly outnumbered,” said Susan Jacoby, author of “Freethinkers.” “When you talk about women atheists, there is less of a pool than men. Women are more religious than men, therefore there are fewer women active in this movement than there are men. So you are starting with a smaller pool and that is a fact.”

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DO NO EVIL: “Google Discount Leaves Churches to Beg.”

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BUT WHAT IF SPOUSE SAYS STUPID THINGS—REPEATEDLY? “Pat Robertson Says Divorce Okay If Spouse Has Alzheimer’s.”

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THE OTHER FOREMAN: “The boxing rabbi.”

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TOLLE ET LEGE: “10 Essential Classics of Western Civilization.” A quibble: Boethius, but not Augustine?

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FROM MY MAGAZINE: “Sanctified and Called to Be Holy” by me.