David, why’d you apologize so quickly???? I was hoping you and Richard would tear each other’s eyes out for a few days before you made up.
Ok, I admit that would have given me mixed emotions. Since Richard has been a wonderful contributor to Beliefnet since 1999 and since you’ve been a wonderful contributor in recent years, I really would have been torn over who to root for.

But now that you’ve attempted to move the discussion past the personal toward the substantive, I guess I’ll follow you there, too.
Richard, I think David’s most important argument is that religious conservative leaders are less powerful than they used to be in part because the rank and file has seen what playing the political game has gotten them. Not much, in David’s view. In fact, he argues that it’s harmed Christianity by giving a distorted view of Jesus’s message. In my opinion, the best evidence David offered on this was the absence of “poverty” from the list of issues considered at the Values Summit. Wasn’t that pretty telling?
Richard, what say ye to that?