The role of the religious right in public life is increasingly a topic in the Greater Blogosphere. This week, many posts are about the struggle over the interpretation, meaning and even the facts of history. There is also a great deal of discussion of the proper role of religion and politics -- and yes, there are right ways and wrong ways -- getting it right is one of the central tasks of our time, and as it turns out, the '08 elections.

Jim Wallis has an announcement to make.

In an article in Time magazine, the author of the popular book God's Politics: Why the Religious Right is Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, declares: The Religious Right's Era Is Over.

And what evidence does he have for this remarkably sunny assertion?

Well, none.

Last summer, in the wake of Senator Barack Obama's speech regarding the role of religion in public life, I wrote several essays pointing out that Senator Obama and Jim Wallis' author of God's Politics, had internalized and expressed one of the central frames of the religious right, namely that "secularists" or a number of variants (secular humanists, secular fundamentalists, etc) were somehow oppressing Christians (or religion, or people of faith, etc), or driving religious people "out of the public square."   They offered no evidence for this. It was, and is, a false and unsubstantiated frame designed by the religious right to argue that traditional efforts to advance the rights of conscience of all citizens against appropriation of governments resources for prostelyzation and other misuses of taxpayer resources and public property to advance religious views were somehow in opposition to religion in general or Christianity in particular.  

Now comes Democratic political consultant Mara Vanderslice who told The New York Times recently that Democrats should not use the phrase separation of church and state because it is not in the Constitution and because "That language says to people that you don't want there to be a role for religion in our public life"  I wrote at the time that this argument is very close to, even indistinguishable from the argument advanced by the religious right. I also noted that she was not the only one saying uch things in the Democratic Party.  That said, I think candidates doing smart forms of "religious outreach is a good thing and, I might add, somethihg that has never been alien to the Democratic Party or to liberals in general. That some Democrats are now more publicly connecting their religious values with their politics is fine with me. Doing it appropriately and well will be the ongoing trick.  

Meanwhile, to underscore how fuzzy this area can get as religious right talking points bleed into the Conventional Wisdom, here is a news and public affairs quiz!

For a generation, the notion of the secular; secularism, secular humanism, the secular left, and most recently (and oxymoronically) secular fundamentalism, and other variations, has become the bogeyman to be opposed. For this, we can thank the works of such religious right theorists as Frances Schaefer, R.J. Rushdoony, and Tim LaHaye,

This is part of a central framing of the nature of what some consider to be a war going on in society: a war between religion and non-religion; between Christianity and religious pluralism; between the once and future Christian Nation and those in league, wittingly or unwittingly with the forces of Satan. All too often secularists, secularism, secular humanism, the secular left, and secular fundamentalism, are synonymous.  This is because the underlying concepts are seen as Satanic in origin, and so the terms are literally terms of demonization.  

Last week, I wrote that the religious right has for a generation, framed the principal struggle in America as one between Christianity and secular humanism. The wording varies, but the frame remains the same. Variations include faith vs. secularism; people of faith vs secular fundamentalism, and so on. We also hear a variation on the frame when we hear people speak of "secularists" or "the secular left," supposedly trying to drive expressions of faith from "the public square." The alleged perpetrators, whether individuals or organizations, are rarely, if ever named. Thus strawmen are repeatedly knocked down in colorful rhetorical barrages.

Unfortunately, the frame has been deeply internalized by people who are not part of the religious right, most notoriously by author Jim Wallis, and by Sen. Barack Obama, in his speech last week at a conference sponsored by Wallis' organization Call to Renewal. Obama's usage in particular shows the way that that term and its variants are routinely used to disparage rather than to describe; as the speaker works off of the frame.

After taking Obama and Wallis to task for their counter-productive contributions in this area, (while also acknowledging other of their good words and good works), I followed up with a two quizzes that sought to show the various ways that the terms are being used and abused. They may mean very different things depending on who you talk to. And sometimes it is difficult to tell the Republicans from the Democrats; and the religious right from the religious left. It is my hope that people will avoid the temptation to get knee jerk about this; the matter of seeing the way that the right has loaded the language is something for all of us to take very seriously.  The religious right has been doing very well for quite awile, and if we are not careful in how we frame these matters, as George Lakoff has made very clear, we risk a great deal. On that note, enjoy your exam. Good luck!

Some of you may have missed the relvant diary and the quizes. If so, you will just have to take the plunge and do the best you can. You have 20 quotes (5 points per quote) taken from a pool of 25 prominent Americans. Self-scoring -- Honor system!

The terms secular, secular humanist, secular fundamentalist, secular left, and many more variations are at the center of our political discourse these days. Yet depending on who you talk to, they mean something completely different. I am not going to make any attempt to sort it all out today. However, as the discussion of the role of religion in public life moves front and center, we will have to sort these things out if we are going to know what each other is talking about. (We might even want to check ourselves and see if we, in fact, know what we are talking about.)

The other day, I posted a piece taking two prominent Democrats to task for muddying these waters and adopting one of the central "frames" (in the George Lakoff sense of the term) of the religious right. I think some of the points were lost in the blogospheric hoo ha, so let me raise them in a hopefully fun new way.  

Test your knowledge!  Here are ten quotes from a pool of 20 well-known Democrats and Republicans, and leaders of the religious right and the nascent religious left. Can you figure out who said what?

Senator Barack Obama's big speech at an event sponsored by Call to Renewal, a group headed by Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Religious Right Gets it Wrong, and Why the Left Doesn't Get It -- has received very mixed reviews and is the buzz of the blogosphere. There is much in Obama's speech that hits the right notes regarding the role of religion in a democratic pluralist society, but the speech is indelibly marred by propagating one of the central frames of the religious right.