the religious right

The evangelical Christian movement conjures up a very negative picture is of a narrow, bigoted collection of pious people who wish to impose their politics and religion on the United States.

It is reinforced by the likes of James Dobson, an influential religious leader who recently pronounced a Republican presidential hopeful, Fred Thompson, as insufficiently Christian.

Warren's church draws more than 20,000 worshipers each Sunday, has a $30 million budget and his global offshoots are mushrooming. Dobson's Focus on the Family organization in Colorado publishes books, magazines and weekly newspaper columns and has a radio show.

Their approaches to American political and social life could not be more different.
Warren, to the consternation of some anti-abortionists on the religious right, invited Senator Barack Obama, Democratic of Illinois and a presidential candidate, to his church to talk about their mutual efforts to battle AIDS and world poverty. Warren is the establishment's favorite evangelical leader, comfortable going to Harvard and the Aspen Institute to preach about Jesus and tolerance.

"Dobson thrives on a role as a political kingmaker" said Charles Kimball, a religion professor at Wake Forest University, in North Carolina. And Dobson is willing to use almost any tactic, however incendiary and divisive. On his radio programs, publications and speeches, his favorite targets are gay civil unions, which Dobson would have you believe threaten the fabric of a moral society.

Dobson deeply immerses himself in Republican Party politics. He was part of a regular conference call with White House operatives during the 2004 campaign and was consulted by Karl Rove, the Bush adviser, before the nomination of two Supreme Court justices, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. He has a close working relationship with a former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich.

Warren, though less political, resembles the Billy Graham, an evangelical minister, of an earlier generation. Graham drew the ire of fundamentalists in the 1960s by reaching across ecumenical and racial lines in his crusades.

Dobson is following in the footsteps of two preachers, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the Batman and Robin of the religious right who have long traded on fear mongering and personal invective.

Ralph Reed, a creative religious-right political operative, once noted the movement succeeded by flying below the radar. Its leaders could rally the faithful without alienating the larger population.

That worked until they overreached. Reed, a victim of personal greed, was ensnared in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and rejected as a political candidate in his home state of Georgia.

Then there was the Terri Schiavo case, where the religious right browbeat the U.S. Congress into intervening, under false pretenses, to try to force the authorities to keep alive a brain-dead woman. Much of the American public was appalled. It was a turning point.

Republican 2008 candidates beware: It is going to be a lot harder to fly below the radar screen especially if you are traveling with Jim Dobson.