Over half of Americans surveyed say that they attend church and pray regularly. There is a great diversity within that group, however. The survey states:

For example, while more than nine-in-ten Americans (92%) believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, there is considerable variation in the nature and certainty of this belief. Six-in-ten adults believe that God is a person with whom people can have a relationship; but one-in-four – including about half of Jews and Hindus – see God as an impersonal force. And while roughly seven-in-ten Americans say they are absolutely certain of God’s existence, more than one-in-five (22%) are less certain in their belief.

A similar pattern is evident in views of the Bible. Nearly two-thirds of the public (63%) takes the view that their faith’s sacred texts are the word of God. But those who believe Scripture represents the word of God are roughly evenly divided between those who say it should be interpreted literally, word for word (33%), and those who say it should not be taken literally (27%). And more than a quarter of adults – including two-thirds of Buddhists (67%) and about half of Jews (53%) – say their faith’s sacred texts are written by men and are not the word of God.

In this election year, the Chapter on Social and Political Views is worth reading. While few Americans say that religion is a major factor in influencing their political views, the reality of correlations may be very different. Issues such as abortion and GLBT rights tend to fall predictably on conservative evangelicals saying NO (except the younger evangelicals are more open, though less open than the general population) and religious liberals saying YES. But other issues, such as the environment or issues concerning world politics vary widely within religious groups. Once lockstep, the environment is becoming more complex.

Here is a surprise: 72% of under-30 Catholics express a tolerant view of homosexuality, compared with around 60 percent of the general population -- yet they and younger evangelicals are more opposed than their older counterparts and the general population to abortion.

Further, a past report indicated that Democrats were not viewed as religion-friendly. That has surely been part of what has spiked religious visibility with this year's crop of runners on both sides of the political fence. Yet the Republicans chose a candidate whose religious leanings were less clear than those running against him.

It is getting harder and harder to pinpoint political position based on religion, but people having a position are quite likely to say it is because of their religion. If I were managing someone's campaign I'd be scratching my head and rolling my eyes.

Catholic bishops in the US have already issued a statement -- affirming the thirst among the laity for dogma and structure. This is echoed by Happy Catholic on her blog.

Kimberly Winston has some interesting commentary. In addition to wondering if the %ages reported who pray at least weekly (75%) are accurate, she says:

The study was full of other interesting facts, if you are a religion geek like me. Here’s my favorite tidbit - 21 percent of of people who identify themselves as atheists say they believe in God.

Kristin Chapman points to the polar ends of commentary about the findings in the report about religious pluralism and tolerance, showing how some people think this is hopeful and others think it is a sign of a growing shallowness.

In any case, the report is worth a view. It certainly gives a fine overview to what we are seeing being acted out on the political stages today.

MataH, CE for Religion and Spirituality does pray every day, and blogs not as often at Time's Fool

Let me say this as clearly as I can. Jesus does not care whether or not I forward an email with a picture of him looking like a weeping Western European to 10 of my closest friends.

Nothing bad will happen if I do not send everyone of you a prayer reported to be by Mother Teresa and/or the Dalai Lama and/or Walt Disney. Even if they wrote it, they probably would cringe to see it sent as a spam-a-lot message that had an after-burn with it --"send this or......(something bad will happen)". The very thought that such a thing was done in her name -- well, if you put your ear to the earth around her grave, you can probably hear the sound of spinning.

G-d loves us all already.

G-d is not going to love us any more or any less because we send out a flipping email telling us all what sinning bits of flotsam and jetsam we all are.

Pssst ...just a thought...G-d probably is a bit busy doing other things than to act as an email hall monitor. He/She is probably not inclined to be counting the number of times we send out the latest piece of spam-drivel about Jesus. I'm just thinking there might be some other things occupying the Deity's time.

I do not have more power than G-d, or the Ultimate Divine. No amount of email going to force God to grant a wish, and no lack of email is going to cause me to break out in open running sores. There is no divine formula for Xemail=Ymiracle.

I will not be blessed for sending an email to anyone that goes on and on about how we are a rich and privileged nation because we are Christian. First, we are not, nor should we be called a "Christian nation". Second, as I recall Jesus didn't exactly hang tight with the super-rich, so I'd be real careful about that analogy.

I am tired of people thinking that just because I believe in and love G-d, that I am some cro-magnon, knuckle dragging automaton who actually thinks that I can push G-d around by whether or not I send on spam.

Sadder still for other folks, I am not someone who believe I have to cajole G-d into loving me by sending endless emails to try to catch his/her attention. I believe God already loves me. End of sentence. That is called "grace". God loves me -- whether I deserve it or not, whether I perform glittering stunts to attract his eye, whether or not I screw up, whether or not I send emails threatening people with the loss of his love.

Folks would do well to let go of x=y fear-factor faith.

Even the non-religious themed spam-forward-please emails get my goat for a similar reason. My destiny is not going to be determined by whether or not I forward an email about friendship, or kittens, or some Colonel whose son was killed after he failed to send an email on (I really did receive that one).

If you believe you have to do stuff to convince G-d to love you, which is not my theological position btw, well, go do something good for someone else. Spam isn't cutting it.

And then the next time you get an email with an implied threat about what might happen if your don't send it -- ask -- "With whom do I entrust the determination of my future?" Do you trust yourself and your relationship with G-d, or the divine, or the universe...or do you trust someone sending out anonymous email?

Don't be afraid to hit "delete". Think of it as an act of faith.

RELATED BLOGS
----------------------------

Huff and Rant describes an experience with religious spam and how she actually responded to it.

Char asks the question "How do you handle religious spam from friends/relatives?"

In a post showing that Islam has its share of spammers as well, Zura explains why it upsets her as well.

Forgive him. Give him and yourself the finest Father's Day gift and forgive him.

First, let's say clearly what forgiveness is NOT. Forgiveness is not saying that what was hurtful is OK, and it does NOT result in putting oneself in harm's way over and over again. Practicing forgiveness, however, is an opportunity that fundamentally changes the terms with which we encounter the world. It is rigorous and freeing. It is like letting a wound be exposed to the clean air so that it can heal.

Not all of us had fathers where there is an unblemished history of parenting. The key thing is -- what is it that we do with those wounds, especially if they are big?

We have a few choices -- we can live in and out of them, seeing the wound over and over, communicating from The Land of the Wound, looking for others to fill the gaps left by the wound, telling the world about it, letting the wound color our days as sad or angry or chronically disappointed with men. Or we can squash down the pain and try to cork it up with food or sex or alcohol or drugs or jogging or work. The problem is that when we are not doing those things, the old wound reasserts itself, and we are off and running.

I had a few years where I should have carried a sign : "Look at me. I am a mobile Father-wound." Not good years.

Developing and honing the spiritual muscles of forgiveness, I am convinced, has to be a conscious task, a true discipline. Our world reinforces not forgiving at such a level of intensity that we must deliberately focus on forgiveness.

Groups proclaim loudly and arrogantly thatthere are no victims, only volunteers. Equally damaging are those who wear their wound like a medal of pride, using it to distinguish themselves as in some way special. I contend that the truth is between -- that hurtful things have been done, ut that we do not haveto let those hurtful things determine our life or our relationships.

Every time that I mention Fathers who are not ideal on my blog or here, women tumble out lots of pain, and lots of hope. So I hope you will indulge me mentioning fathers and forgiveness once again.

First, if you feel comfortable or hopeful about talking through old issues with your father, please do it. Some moments can really be redemptive, and worth the risk. I'll pray for your success.

Here is a story about my Dad, taken from an old blog entry of mine:

My own father could be nasty and brutish, with a temper that was primitive and terrifying. When I was a little girl, I remember a night he and my Mom were arguing. I was upstairs in my room, but I could hear them downstairs. There was a lot of yelling. Then my father was clumping loudly up the stairs; and then there was a loud almost Olympic shot-putting shout from him, followed immediately by a thunderous noise. It sounded like lightening had hit just hit my room.

My father called my mother upstairs, and told me to get out of my room and into the hall. He showed us what he had done. He had driven his two fists into the hard plaster wall about 4-6 inches in, leaving two deep fist marks in the concave fist-blasted plaster.

He said "I want the two of you to see this." His voice got ominous. " Next time it could be you," and he walked away.

He never hit us, but he refused to let my Mom plaster over those holes for many years. I walked by that grim reminder of my father's lurking rage every time I went to my room for a long time.

A few years before he died, with him in his 80's and me in my 50's, I asked him if he remembered that day. He said, dismissively, "Sure, but that was just rage. Everyone feels that." I calmly told him that actually everyone really does not feel that, and that in some homes it would be entirely foreign.

He looked at me as though I had dropped into his kitchen from Saturn. "Then they are lying to you," he said with utter certainty, and got up and went into the other room.

Conversation over.

Rage was what my father knew. Like Jake laMotta in the film, Raging Bull, to him the words "life" and "rage" were indistinguishable.

I decided to forgive my father for that time. That one isolated time. Two nights later, I wasn't done -- three nights, not done; four, not done. The event still held a charge for me. (It clearly still does, as I can recall it vividly and in great detail. )

I do find a way to se and forgive pieces of things - the knowledge that his rage wasn't about us or anything we did - the history in his own childhood of violence - the fact that he was not educated and had never been exposed to real gentleness before my mother - and I throw piece after piece of it at my memory, but with no full luck....until...
It starts to dawn on me that he also did great violence to himself with his own temper.

Also, some less than pleasant things dawn on me - ways in which I am frightened to forgive -- afraid it would open me to more rage, more abuse -- even though my father is now dead there are ways I cling to his wrong-doings. There can be absolutely irrational protection around a wound. But here is the secret -- the protection can irritate the wound so that it does not heal. (Read that twice if you have to.)

Now I'm coming to understand that forgiveness is a journey, a way of being in the world -- not an event. It is not a magical eraser. It is a way of unfolding the past differently.

It is not about restoring things to some magical place where the reality of our lives did not happen.

It is partly about establishing a spiritual practice where I can let go of the parts of myself that are still living in the past.

It is also partly about finding the similarities between the part of myself that cannot release that memory, and the part
of my father that could not let go of his rage. This is the tough stuff to face. This is the legacy of a wound.

Here is a section of an old email I sent to a friend:

Forgiveness (at least in part, the part I understand) is the putting down of a burden of bad feeling. It is a Great and Holy Unraveling. It is saying "I will no longer see the world through this piece of pain." It is, for me, a way to freedom.

RELATED BLOGS

Eyelet has a great post about forgiving her father:

My dad was sick. And though it would be egotistical of me to think I had the right to be angry in the first place, I forgave him. I let go of the past, and recognized that it was what it was, and there is no way I can change that now. All I can do is make a new start for myself in this moment, with a pure forgiveness, from the heart, for any old "hurts."

I knew I had made mistakes as well. Perhaps all these years would have been different, if I had seen the whole picture long ago. If I had accepted my father for who he was, and who he wasn't. If I was able to look past my selfishness and realize that in a family, it's not just the parents who provide for the children, it's a team effort. I apologized to my father, and he forgave me with pleasure.

And I realized that this might even be harder than forgiving him. I began the road to forgiving myself. Realizing that the only way to make up for all those lost years is to do what's right in this moment, and avail myself to the relationship I never let us have.

Rose writes about forgiving and has this advice:

I realized that forgiveness begins with your decision to forgive, but because memories or another set of words or actions may trigger old feelings, I find I need to recommit to forgiveness over and over again.

Hoping that the other person will change their actions, behavior or words isn't the point of forgiveness. In fact, the other person may never change or apologize. I learned that forgiveness is more about how it will change my life by bringing me more peace, happiness, and emotional healing.

Gail, in her blog,Crosses to Bear struggles with forgiving her father until she finds a way. Click on the above link to see her resolution.:

How do you forgive someone who has hurt you so badly? That was the question I grappled with on the day of my father's funeral. I would continue to ponder that question many times over the next few months, always coming back to the same thing...what, exactly, does it mean to forgive? By forgiving him, would I be throwing myself away and discounting all of the pain I had suffered at his hands? He had never suffered any penalties for the things he had done to me and I had received no justice for his deeds. Shouldn't there have been penalties? Shouldn't there have been justice? My emotions alternated between self-pity and justifiable anger. Yet, a little voice, way in the back of my head, kept whispering over and over and over, "Forgive him".

But incense apparently does even more than carry our prayers aloft. A new study points out the efficacy of frankincense for alleviating the symptoms of anxiety and depression. (The usual caveats apply - we are not doctors. Consult yours first. This is not medical advice.)

Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses.
.
“In spite of information stemming from ancient texts, constituents of Bosweilla had not been investigated for psychoactivity,” said Raphael Mechoulam, one of the research study’s co-authors. “We found that incensole acetate, a Boswellia resin constituent, when tested in mice lowers anxiety and causes antidepressive-like behavior. Apparently, most present day worshipers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning.”

To counter that news, The Buddhist Channel reports that :

Incense burning produces over 4 times more particulate matter than cigarette smoke.
According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, toluene can cause headaches, confusion, and memory loss. Xylenes can cause headaches, lack of muscle coordination, dizziness, confusion, and changes in one's sense of balance, irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat; and difficulty in breathing.
Inhaling incense smoke may cause respiratory dysfunction, allergies, allergic contact dermatitis, growths and tumors, and genetic mutations.
As allergies and chemical sensitivities are on the rise, many yoga studios have looked for alternatives to incense and restrict the wearing of scent to class. Some safer alternatives include natural potpourri and fresh flowers.

There we go, thinking that incense was part of a mystical journey to another consciousness, and it turns out it was part of an aroma therapy treatment that can cause dangerous health risks.

Still, ritualist that I am, I love it when there is incense during worship -- despite the time that a friend of mine was carrying the thurible (that swinging incense pot) down the aisle of the church and managed to set his garment a'smolder when his swinging got too vigorous and shot a spark or two out onto his robe.

Or there was the time when an aggressive Lutheran thurifer (they get to do this so seldom) on Christmas Eve almost wiped out the entire soprano section of the choir who were positioned near the altar and found it hard to sing in a fog of smoke. "Joy to the world --cough--cough-- wheeze."

Still, I love the stuff, and have some at home not for any exalted reason, just because I love the scent. I tend to favor a peach/ginger incense from Pier I, and a $1 a tube variety from my local Indian food store.

What are your opinions? Have you ever used incense when you pray or meditate? Does it help? Hinder?

RELATED BLOGS

Minette at ScentSignals makes a case for use of incense on Memorial days.

Tania describes the "Zen of Incense" and offers pointers for its use.

Susie of Arabia provides a great picture of a huge sidewalk incense burner in Jeddah.

Lady Rose offers a recipe or homemade incense.

In various countries, today is celebrated by cleaning house, putting up special decorations and by making offerings of food, flowers, and incense to teachers. Monks chant special scriptures and give public talks. Laypeople will often take special vows for the day and devote themselves to meditation and doing good deeds. At night, there is often a procession of candles around a Buddha statue, to honor the message of enlightenment.

The final day of the Fifth International Buddhist Conference on United Nations Day of Vesak 2008 concluded in Hanoi today. In addition to traditional chants for world peace, special chants were done for the victims of natural disaster in Burma and China.

The Buddhist Channel reports that Dharma teacher, Larry Ward, Director of the Lotus Institute was one of the keynote speakers at the conference.

Mr. Ward reflected on the primary lesson learned in all of these settings. "The post-modern soul is seeking an experience of transformation and healing, more than an explanation of transformation and healing. If an explanation comes along, that's great. But what really matters to people is when they find their own suffering transformed and healed." He continued, "We are in the midst of a new society. The society we would be happy living in is not here yet. But the seeds of a just, democratic and civilized society are here, and we are the ground." He asked the delegates, "Where is the Buddha?" and answered, "Look close. Close to where we are, close to our own heart, or we will not find him or her." He concluded with a beautiful poem he has recently written and urged the delegates gently to continue on in their practice to relieve the suffering of all beings, to not leave anyone behind and to wake up, wake up, wake up."

Jasmine in M.Y.L.I.F.E. in Singapore tells of her family's celebration, including a temple visit and a stop at a fascinating amusement park.

Dreamy in Living Vegan writes from Singapore also and describes this year's Vesak at a Burmese temple.

Rhyn is a Chinese-Indonesian woman who writes at My Life is more than just a Life. While at temple she felt the lack of more deep experience of the meanings of her tradition. She shares the beginning of a renewed spiritual journey.

If you would like to learn more about one branch of Buddhism by experiencing the writings of a great teacher, please read anything written by Thich Nhat Hanh a Vietnamese monk and past nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Some quotes follow:

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

“In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.”

The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other. We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, "to suffer with."

Losing a mother is just so hard - especially if there is a good and close relationship in place. I know Mari Jo did hang on for one last Mother's Day. For her, it would be a gift of love to her children -- to not have to forever know Mother's Day only as the day their Mom died. Ron and MariJo were deeply faithful people, and Ron is comforted by the fact that he knows his beloved wife is with G-d. That she is not here anymore does not mean that she is not anywhere in some form. It is to that faith that this family clings and finds hope.

Everyone grieves differently, handles the time of mourning differently. Not only do we bring our own set of complex feelings to the event, but we interlace it with our national, cultural, ethnic and religious beliefs and traditions.

When my friend Binh's mother passed on (they are Vietnamese Buddhists), the rituals associated with passing were quite different - with the whole family involved in various ways to help the soul cross over into the afterlife. The family held a 24 hour vigil at the funeral parlor, so that if the soul should emerge during that time, it should not become frightened or disoriented, as loved ones would be nearby. The family gently prepared the body for burial, being careful not to move it much at all, so as to not jostle the spirit in any way. The utmost reverence was employed, as the family performed a number of rituals to help the soul across.

We westerners do not really have similar rituals that seek to involve us directly with the soul of the departed as it moves through time/space. We focus more on our own grief, rather than the transition period of the departed. I saw how comforting that was to Binh's family -- to have something to do that felt helpful during a time of such sorrow.

When my own mother passed away, the grief ripped my heart out. But I also recall saying "It could be worse; she could be really dead." I know that she is somewhere, beyond here. In a place I cannot describe or know. But that she is I have no doubt.

Those of you who are mothers, or who have lost beloved mothers will understand me when I say that my own mother hovers to this day. Odd things happen to a few of us who were close to her in this life for which there is no rational explanation except her presence.

So I bring all of this on the road with me as I will drive to MariJo's wake, a few states from here.

I will remember the sound of her voice when last we spoke -- about a week ago -- when she sounded both fragile and hopeful, but very tired, beyond an exhaustion I had heard before.

I will tell her family that I believe, as do they, that she is with G-d. I will whisper to her soul tonight to not be afraid, and to know that good things will continue to unfold for her and for her family. And I'll cry.

I'll cry for her and for my Mom and for the shared grief in everyone who has ever lost a Mom.

And then I will take a deep breath and move forward in hope.

------related blogs---

Patricia, in her blog Seeing for Myself describes her experience of grief from the perspective of Transcendental Meditation.

AnnDroid who works in two prisons, speaks of the notion of Disenfranchised Grief and how it differs from 'normal' grief. This is quite interesting and well-written. Here is a brief excerpt:

Disenfranchised grief screws up the normal processes, though. Disenfranchised grief has been defined as grief that isn't openly acknowledged, isn't socially accepted, or isn't publicly mourned. The relationship, the loss, the griever are unrecognised. The mourners are cut off from social supports and don't get the chance they need to do that grief work, to express their grief, and reach a resolution stage.

Charlene in Good Grief and a side of Scrapple recalls her own mother's funeral:

The next day as I watched my nephews, now husbands and fathers, carry their
grandmother’s coffin, I could still see them as toddlers who needed to be shielded
from the reality of death, and I was struck by the magnificence of authentic grief
– not the reductive sadness over what was taken away, but the painful transparency
of mortality and the cycle of life, and the significance of every connected
existence. And for the first time, I understood her. Even from her grave, she was
silently taking care of me, reminding me of what was important.

Pauline in her blog, Writing Down the Words, says:

Life on earth is at best a chancy thing. You cannot know the exact moment when you will leave the land of the living or if your dreams will die before they've been fully lived. One thing is certain—if a loved one leaves before you, whether by accident or design, you will travel to the strange land of grief and you will go alone. The winds of change will swirl about you, pick you up, transform you forever, and set you down in another place.

Mata H, CE for Religion & Spirituality blogs her soul out at Time's Fool

On the one hand, the document attempts to serve as a self-chastising document combined with a rallying cry -- and one is encouraged briefly when raeding things like:

"That way faith loses its independence, the church becomes 'the regime at prayer,' Christians become 'useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form," the document reads.
"Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality," the document says.

But wait..there is more.

We are committed to a civil public square – a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well. Every right we assert for ourselves as Christians is a right we defend for all others.
Third, we are concerned that a generation of culture warring, reinforced by understandable reactions to religious extremism around the world, has created a powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people. If this hardens into something like the European animosity toward religion in public life, the result would be disastrous for the American republic and would severely constrict liberty for people of all faiths. The striking intolerance shown by the new atheists is a warning sign.

All too often we have attacked the evils and injustices of others, such as the killing of the unborn, as well as the heresies and apostasies of theological liberals whose views have developed into ―another gospel, while we have condoned our own sins, turned a blind eye to our own vices, and lived captive to forces such as materialism and consumerism in ways that contradict our faith.

So let me understand this.....the withdrawl from politics and the open attitude toward the voices of other faiths in the public square -- and then the paragraph about "killing of the unborn" (hardly a phrase that invites dialogue) not to mention the "heresies and apostasies of theological liberals" -- well, it has me wondering how this moves us, as a nation, forward.

Then this

Let it be known unequivocally that we are committed to religious liberty for people of all faiths, including the right to convert to or from the Christian faith. We are firmly opposed to the imposition of theocracy on our pluralistic society. We are also concerned about the liberalism of politically correct attacks on evangelism. We have no desire to coerce anyone or to impose on anyone beliefs and behavior that we have not persuaded them to adopt freely, and that we do no not demonstrate in our own lives, above all by love.

That love caused this statement (and 6 paragraphs more) about liberal Christians:

The liberal revisionist tendency was first seen in the eighteenth century and has become more pronounced today, reaching a climax in versions of the Christian faith that are characterized by such weaknesses as an exaggerated estimate of human capacities, a shallow view of evil, an inadequate view of truth, and a deficient view of God. In the end, they are sometimes no longer recognizably Christian. As this sorry capitulation occurs, such "alternative gospels" represent a series of severe losses that eventually seal their demise.

One would hope that there would be an equally strong denunciation of the far right. Here is the sole paragraph in the same section as the above:

Christian Fundamentalism has its counterparts in many religions and even in secularism, and often becomes a social movement with a Christian identity but severely diminished Christian content and manner. Fundamentalism, for example, all too easily parts company with the Evangelical principle, as can Evangelicals themselves, when they fail to follow the great commandment that we love our neighbors as ourselves, let alone the radical demand of Jesus that his followers forgive without limit and love even their enemies.

pjmiler at Sola Dei Gloria says:

Global, Global, Global, seems to be the key word in this document released today, along with a Political tone. The very title: An Evangelical Manifesto - The Washington Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment, is political. I find that very odd when the reason given for why this document was deemed necessary was, and I quote: “the drafters are troubled that in recent years the term “Evangelical” has often been used politically…”

Kelly at Reclaiming the Word (faith) says

I sensed that I was hearing the voices of brothers, not even distant cousins, but brothers (and the charter signers are, in fact, overwhelmingly male - the steering committee is all male) ...

She goes on to add her articulate and heartfelt dismay that a document that resonated with her so strongly got bogged down in the old "affirming the sanctity of straight marriage" ("s mine, not hers) which flew in the face of a message that supports dialogue on many other fronts.

Caitie at Bonitarojita is delighted.

I LOVE this. Love love love. As one who is a student studying political science at a very liberal, secular university, I find myself frequently not just defending my beliefs but my whole identity in Christ. I struggle every day with how my faith fits in with what I study, where I live and who I come in contact with, especially non-believers. I cannot count the number of times I’ve been on the verge of denouncing myself as an evangelical, even though I know that in the truest sense of the word an evangelical is precisely what I am.

It took about 3 years to assemble this document. There will be lots of sound and fury about it. The blogosphere is abuzz. I see no changes forthcoming, do you?

In fairness, here is a paragraph I wished I could believe was true. I wish. I wish.
"Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival. "