I'm concerned about the appearance of endorsement. But Gobel says she will get the guides distributed among Hardy's parishioners, even if it means putting roller blades on her seven children and dispatching them to place a guide on every windshield in the parking lot. Despite his doubts about the ability of legislation to change the public's heart, Hardy doesn't endorse a full retreat from politics. Our responsibility in Scriptures is to be salt and light in a world that needs the influence of Judeo-Christian values. Besides, says Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader, politics is too alluring to abandon.
People love it, and they can make a difference.
But the debate over how to make a difference, and how much difference religious conservatives can make, isn't disappearing, in part because it is one of the basic debates of American political life. It can be painful to find that you don't usher in the millennium by winning a political election, but it is also helpful for realizing that politics is only a part of a broader agenda that also includes a dose of racial reconciliation, a dose of evangelism, a dose of charitable activity.