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Political action, talking to moderates, needed - instead of just condemning the right.

W.B.Wilcox (Yale research fellow) on C.Smith's "Christian America? What Evangelicals Really Want" - a book which denies evangelical views are monolithic, or a threat to political moderation & tolerance.

'Faisal bin Ali Jaber stood face to face with Representative Adam B. Schiff - a California Democrat who had carved out 20 minutes between two votes on natural gas policy - to tell his story: how he watched in horror last year as drone-fired missiles incinerated his nephew and brother-in-law in a remote Yemeni village. 'Neither of the victims was a member of Al Qaeda. In fact, the opposite was true. They were meeting with three Qaeda members in hopes of changing the militants' views. '"It really puts a human face on the term 'collateral damage,' " said Mr. Schiff, looking awed after listening to Mr. Jaber. 'A gaunt civil engineer with a white mustache, Mr. Jaber spent the past week struggling to pierce the veil of secrecy and anonymity over the Obama administration's drone strike program.... He did not have much luck. 'He met at length with a half-dozen members of Congress, as well as officials from the National Security Council and the State Department. Everywhere, he received heartfelt condolences. But no one has been able to explain why his relatives were killed, or why the administration is not willing to acknowledge its mistake. 'It was an error with unusual resonance. Mr. Jaber's brother-in-law was a cleric who had spoken out against Al Qaeda shortly before the drone killed him. The nephew was a local policeman who had gone along in part to offer protection....'

"Evangelical Christianity need not be defined by the simplistic theology, cultural isolationism and stubborn anti-intellectualism that most of the Republican candidates have embraced. >Like other evangelicals, we accept the centrality of faith in Jesus Christ and look to the Bible as our sacred book, though we find it hard to recognize our religious tradition in the mainstream evangelical conversation. Evangelicalism at its best seeks a biblically grounded expression of Christianity that is intellectually engaged, humble and forward-looking. In contrast, fundamentalism is literalistic, overconfident and reactionary."