So there was a big “Values Voters” shindig this weekend, and all the Republican candidates came to sweet-talk evangelicals. This story, on Guiliani’s talk, made me wonder, how stupid do people think we are? Or more appropriately, how stupid are we? I mean, a guy with a personal moral record no better than Bill Clinton comes along, tells a few jokes, throws in some religious-sounding stuff, and we’re supposed to roll over and let him rub our belly? “Don’t you just want me to be honest,” and then some BS about how his “faith” is so heartfelt but private?

Actually, if it weren’t for his moral bankruptcy and his position on abortion I would probably be a huge Guiliani fan. He has the gravitas and the, shall we say, cajones to decisively lead the country. But seriously, why do we let these guys come feed us lines like that? It happened with Clinton too– he could speak our language and we just loved the attention. At what point are we going to be credible enough that Republicans (and Democrats) no longer think they can just throw verbal candy at us?

Here’s something to chew on: I think one reason the world takes us for suckers, acts as though our faith isn’t really that important of a thing, is that we act that way. Look at the Christian culture. We look just like the world, minus ten years and creativity. Joel Osteen is all over the networks with that charming smile and that self-help anti-gospel. Listen to Christian radio, if you can stand it. Read our books. Listen to our sermons, with our funny stories and seven-ways-to-do-this-or-that. We give no indication that we are talking about holy things, life and death things, serious things. There’s no sense that we really believe God is as holy as the Bible says he is, and that his glory is the most important thing in the world. If we took God more seriously, the Bible more seriously, the Christian life more seriously, there’s just the slightest chance it might cause the world to take us more seriously. And that might get us killed, but at least it wouldn’t get us pandered to.