Andrew Sullivan, a gay Christian, does a great job of outlining the differences between faith and a political movement, a disparity somehow lost to the Right over the last several years.  This is a very good read.  To wit:

Are you a Christian who doesn’t feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.

The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women’s equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them–and respecting their neighbors’ choices. That doesn’t threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.

And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God’s real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one’s beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.

There’s more, and it’s a compelling read.  While I normally and adamantly speak out against religion and those who blindly follow it, I respect those who, like Andrew and others, practice their faith by setting an example.  This contrasts evidently with the current political movement of Christianism whereby radical fundamentalists want to believe that forcing their faith on others by way of the law is a perfectly acceptable evangelical technique.  Andrew shoots that idea in the foot:

Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?

He goes on to make the argument that we should separate real Christians from the political institution by referring to the latter as Christianism (and its followers as Christianists) so that the terms ‘Christian’ and ‘Christianity’ might remain the purview of the faithful, representations of a religious belief independent of those who are hijacking it for political purposes.

So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

That’s what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn’t. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It’s time the quiet majority of believers took it back.

If only all Christians were brave enough to stand up and take their religion back, to practice it according to the bible which they claim to uphold and cherish, and to cease inflicting it on others by way of law.  That in no way represents the Christianity shown in the marketing materials: a religion of tolerance, of faith, of inclusion, of fairness and equity, and of love.  I see them standing and pointing at Islamic terrorists and proclaiming Muslims have allowed their religion to be hijacked while their own is used to circumscribe the religious and personal freedoms of everyone, but most specifically anyone who does not share their beliefs.  I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees that so plainly.