Steve Thorngate is correct - there is a substantial coalescing of certain evangelical leaders and "megachurches" around issues previously associated only with the left, Democrats and progressives. It's not just Sojourners (an amazing organization, even for agnostics or secularists) and Jim Wallis, who are well-known among evangelical circles as being "liberals" and therefore, somehow, not "real" Christians. (Throw Tony Campollo into that same disparaged group, too.) But this new movement within the evangelical circles includes people like Rick Warren (A Purpose Drive Life) and some others who have traditionally been concerned with coded issues like "family values" and "traditional marriage." What's going on in the evangelical circles is real and noteworthy, and may actually signify a loosening of the grasp of the pro-corporate, anti-government wing of Christianity that has come to measure the value of a person by his/her wallet and memorization of catch-phrases.

I understand Sept's inclination to dismiss people of faith as people of "faith," and lump them all into that group of glassy-eyed jello-for-brains. But Democrats must be about winning, and when polls show that the vast majority of Americans consider themselves Christians, we can't just sweep that information away as inconsequential, or, worse, ridiculously annoying. Neither, however, can we hire "faith coaches" to teach our candidates how to Speak Christian. We all have areas of expertise in which we can see bullshit coming at 40 paces, and honest-to-God Christians are no different.

Here's the outreach we need to be doing: to Christians (and Jews and Muslims) who understand the basic tenets of their faith as calling them to help "the least of these." This is the same community of faith (no quotation marks here) that led the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, and that is doing amazing work in the areas of peace and justice, the death penalty, and human rights. Let's stop seeing Pat Robertson's face when we say "evangelical Christian" and start seeing Martin Luther King Jr.'s face, or Barack Obama's face, or Jimmy Carter's face, or even Rick Warren's face. Let's reach out to the people who, like Don Fowler, say "I'm a Democrat BECAUSE I'm a Christian."

I have been wearing my Think Blue 2008 bracelet for two years. And I wore it to my church every Sunday, until I replaced it with a Grow Cells Grow bracelet in honor of my niece who is undergoing a bone marrow transplant. I've had a really difficult time learning to say the words "I'm a Christian" in public, outside that church, but I'm finally sick and tired of Christianists co-opting my set of beliefs, myery tenuous and difficult faith, and a lifetime struggle to lead a meaningful life, simply by claiming a pompous and unchallengable interpretation of a book. Republicans have tried to co-opt patriotism this same way, and I'm sick of that, too.

Not all Christians or people of faith want to turn this country into a theocracy. I don't know if Obama is electable yet (although it bears noting that the only African American post-Reconstruction governor came from a southern state). But I do know that he can Speak Christian because he is one, and I like that.