As a progressive follower of Jesus, I cringe when I see the word "evangelical" used without qualification to characterize reactionary fundamentalists like Sarah Palin and the members of the Wasilla Assembly of God. Referring to them simply as "evangelicals" is like referring to neocon warmongers simply as "Republicans". The term "evangelical" covers a very broad assortment of Christian believers united only by a robust faith in Jesus Christ. Many of us, however, hear in the words of Jesus a call to tolerance, compassion, and humility that issue in beliefs toward gays, the poor, and the exercise of military force that are at polar opposites with Palin and her fellow ideologues (think former Salon contributor Annie Lamott!!), who see the world in the easy-to-process black and white of a simplistic theology based on a quirky, literal reading of the Bible.

So please get it straight, Salon -- evangelicals are not necessarily fundamentalists! You indiscriminately tar the entire group -- which includes a lot of avid Salon readers -- with the same brush when you use the more inclusive term to refer only to its most extreme members.

Is there someone you wish Obama had chosen to give the invocation?

Definitely: Jim Wallis. The polar opposite of the puffed-up Warren. Founder of Sojourners, cogent critic of Bush and the war, author of numerous books on faith and politics, ceaseless advocate for social justice. Obama's choice of Warren for the Inaugural invocation is a huge disappointment.

Oh my gawd, Cary Tennis is insufferable. He doesn't even have enough respect for the writer to take him at his word that the aggressor left him no non-violent alternative to getting his own ass kicked. The writer's completely legitimate question was: GIVEN that I had no non-violent alternative, why do I feel guilty? Sorry, Tennis tells him, I won't grant you that, for that is not how things work in Cary-world. So instead he tells the writer, in effect, that he is lying, that he could have walked away -- cuz, you know, it's ALWAYS possible safely to walk away in Cary-world -- and THAT is why he feels guilty. Please. Perhaps the guy feels guilty because he caused injury to another person, irrespective of the circumstances. Perhaps he realized that the aggressor is probably not a complete jerk and simply let his bad judgment get the best of him and he paid for it -- irrespective of the fac that the writer is the one who made him pay. But that relatively mundane answer wouldn't have let Cary spin his oh-so-precious, oh-so-clever fight-as-social-ritual analysis. Ugh. Give us all a break, Cary; be a little less impressed by your own abilities.