BOOKS Christianity and politics meet often in publishing

Jimmy Carter and the editor of Newsweek are among the scribes with new books out.
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
AP RELIGION WRITER
The ongoing furor about Christianity's role in American politics is provoked especially by the conjunction of difficult moral issues with rising conservative activism and closely fought elections.
In the recent flood of books about this, several warrant special attention:
U"American Theocracy" (Viking) by Kevin Phillips. This one-time Republican analyst attacks America's oil dependence and indebtedness but especially decries religious conservatives' alliance with the Republican Party.
U"Our Endangered Values" (Simon & amp; Schuster) by Jimmy Carter. The former Democratic president shares many partisan themes with Phillips in a superficial attack on "fundamentalism" in politics and within his own Southern Baptist Convention.
U"American Gospel" (Random House) by Jon Meacham. This Newsweek magazine editor's discursive historical essay says that in a democracy, it's inevitable that religious groups will address public issues.
U"Washington's God" (Basic Books) by Michael and Jana Novak. The authors examine the faith of the first president and religious precedents he set.
U"A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan" (Knopf) by Michael Kazin. This is the best of the lot. A Georgetown University expert on the Populist era provides an engaging portrait of a three-time (1896, 1900, 1908) candidate for president.
Bryan's movement fused Bible-based moralism with the Democratic Party. That history demolishes Phillips' claim that with Bush-era Republicans, "for the first time, the United States has a political party that represents -- some say over-represents -- true-believing frequent churchgoers."
Phillips did find some actual theocrats, known as "reconstructionists." But despite his insinuations, they have negligible impact on America's church or state.
Hot-button issues
He loathes conservatives who address gay marriage, school prayer, sex education, "intelligent design" or the war on terror. But he never explains why they are un-American theocrats but not religious and secular types who preach the opposite values.
Carter has the same sort of problem. He thinks "separation of church and state" forbids corporate church activism, limiting agitation to individuals. Is it illegitimate for churches to lobby about black and immigrant rights, federal spending for the poor, environmental protection or other liberal causes? If not, Carter never explains the difference.
Kazin, a self-described "secular liberal," calls Bryan "a great Christian liberal." Today's Democrats and liberals, Kazin observes, suppose they can safely "ignore moral issues grounded in religious conviction," yet "most Americans don't share their mistrust of public piety."
The case of Bryan is a reminder that their forebears embraced religious activism, and a warning to conservatives and Republicans that some crusades will be seen as mistakes in the long term.
Today, Bryan is remembered mostly for one mistake: opposing the teaching of evolution at the 1925 Scopes Trial. Kazin says that religiously, Bryan was "not a fundamentalist as we now understand that term." Bryan opposed Darwinism not only as an attack upon the Bible but upon the downtrodden, because "survival of the fittest" was being applied to society.
Other Bryan errors, in retrospect, were alcohol prohibition and the support for Jim Crow policies on race that he shared with all major Democrats of that era. Except for race, the Democrats ceased being America's more conservative party due to Bryan's impact.
His ideas
Consider his then-radical proposals:
Income taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, government regulation of banks and the stock market, antitrust laws, federally insured bank deposits, protection for labor union members and strikers, federal aid to education and highway construction, workmen's compensation, a minimum wage, government farm subsidies and food inspection, publicly funded campaigns, women's right to vote and direct election of U.S. senators.
And -- 2006 doves take note -- Bryan's hostility to American militarism overseas bordered on pacifism.
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