Arizona Anonymous' post [1]yesterday on Hillary Clinton's calculated use of Mother Theresa's image in her campaign video illustrates one of the most interesting developments in the 2008 race.

I know this is hard for them. For years they have been calling evangelicals bigots, accusing us of wanting a "theocracy," blaming us for abortion clinic bombings, and even equating us with radical Islamic killers. Even now, I suspect that the average Democratic pol is more comfortable with the views that Rosie O'Donnell so elegantly expressed when she said

“Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state.”

Yet the Democrats aren't stupid. They're tired of getting beaten because of their visceral dislike of Christianity and those poor misguided Christians. They're tired of rural voters who tend to sympathize with Democratic economic concerns voting Republican simply because they believe Democrats don't respect their deeply held faith.

So now we see projects like Jim Wallis' Sojourners movement [2], an effort to get evangelical Christians to move beyond the typical "Christian issues" like abortion and gay marriage. In Wallis' view, Christians should be more concerned with poverty, economic justice, genocide relief and global warming, than they are with traditional values issues. For the first time, we see Democratic candidates speak explicitly(ish) of their own religious faith, [3] in a manner that would make the ACLU scream foul if it was done by Republican candidates.

The goal of the Sojourners movement, in concert with the Democratic Party, is to separate Christians into Good Christians and Bad Christians.

Good Christians are tolerant, ecumenical, and believe in environmentalism and wealth redistribution. They don't "force their beliefs" on anyone, and don't particularly care if gay people who love each other get married. After all, didn't Jesus preach love? Good Christians don't really scare Democrats, because they don't really talk about God, and don't see the world in black and white.

Bad Christians are narrow-minded, bigoted, and follow the letter of the law. They are still worried about old-fashioned things like abstinence, still believe in creationism (ha!) and are so sexually repressed that they want to stop adults from doing whatever they want to each other. More than anything, a Bad Christian wants women who have abortions to be rounded up and put in jail.

If you still believe that the Bible might just be the inspired word of God, and that things like gay marriage and abortion are wrong, you're probably a Bad Christian. Go ahead and vote Republican, you Bad, Bad Christian.

But if you are rational and tolerant, and take the Bible for what it is -- moral teachings from a great prophet, you're a Good Christian! Welcome to the Democratic Party! See, isn't Hillary Clinton a much better representative of a modern Christian than that bigot Jerry Falwell?

Christian voters are not the simple-minded, monolithic voting block that Democrats think we are. A lot of us are conservatives for reasons that go far beyond abortion and gay marriage. A lot of us are well-educated, rational, and fair-minded people who choose to support Republicans because they're right on taxes, or defense, or tough on crime.