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The problem of the evangelicals! Is that really how They talk about Us? There's too much confusion here, as Bob Dylan said; it's hard to know where to begin. In general, the figures most readily identified with the Religious Right—Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tim LaHaye, et al.— have been negligibly influenced by Catholic thought. Among evangelical intellectuals, Catholicism is much more influential than it was a generation ago, but it is only one stream among many shaping public discourse among evangelical élites, and certainly not on a par with the Reformed tradition represented by thinkers such as Nicholas Wolterstorff, Richard Mouw, and many others. Hard as it may be for Foer and Linker to grasp, evangelicals are not entirely dependent on crumbs from the Catholic table.

And so on. For a corrective to Foer and Linker on this score, a good place to start is A Public Faith: Evangelicals and Civic Engagement, edited by Michael Cromartie (Rowman & Littlefield/Ethics and Public Policy Center).

Who knows what really goes on in the offices of First Things? It was my good friend Jody Bottum, after all (who left The Weekly Standard to become editor of First Things a year or so ago), who introduced me to "The Inquisitor," a lay Catholic hitman featured in a series of novels in the 1970s written by Martin Cruz Smith under the pen name Simon Quinn. If I were Damon Linker, I'd watch my back. Perhaps in those labyrinthine chambers, where bottles of single-malt Scotch are no doubt more numerous than Bibles, Father Richard John Neuhaus mocks his intellectually challenged evangelical allies while planning the coup d'état that will turn the United States into a Catholic theocracy once and for all. Politics—and religion too—makes strange bedfellows.

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Weblog earlier commented on Damon Linker's article.

Books & Culture Corner and Books & Culture's Book of the Week, from Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture: A Christian Review (want a free trial issue?), appears regularly on Tuesdays at Christianity Today. Earlier editions include:

Was George Washington a Christian? | A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. (April 4, 2006)

The Mystery of the Numbers | B&C's annual baseball preview, 2006 edition. (March 21, 2006)

Passionately Ambivalent | Christians in the art world. (Feb. 14, 2006)

Worship—What We've Learned | A report from the Calvin Symposium. (Jan. 31, 2006)

Making—and Breaking—Vows | A compelling memoir from the son of a priest and a former nun. (Jan. 17, 2006)

Coming to a Bookstore Near You | Marsden and Hart, Noll and Stout, and more (Jan. 10, 2006)

Ring Out the Old Year | Some highly subjective awards for 2005. (Jan. 4, 2006)

Not Just Looking | Books for the eye. (Dec. 27, 2005)

The Top Ten Books of 2005 | A charming bedside miscellany, a new novel by P. D. James, and much more. (Dec. 20, 2005)

How to Survive a Bookalanche | Some more keepers from 2005. (Dec. 13, 2005)

'Tis the Season for Books (And Lists of Books) | Part one of our 2005 roundup. (Dec. 6, 2005)

Taizé in the Fall | A parable of community. (Nov. 29, 2005)

For book lovers, our 2005 CT book awards are available online, along with our book awards for 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, and 1997, as well as our Books of the Twentieth Century. For other coverage or reviews, see our Books archive and the weekly Books & Culture Corner.

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April (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50