A column by Patrick Hynes says what many observers have noticed:

Democrats have some serious decisions to make about the future of their party and its message. The Democrat Party cannot long stand as one that demands separation of church and state in all -- even symbolic -- matters while at the same time claiming Biblical substantiation for liberal public policies. They cannot imply John Roberts’ queasiness about Roe v. Wade breaches the “impregnable wall,” as Sen. Dianne Feinstein did during Roberts’ confirmation hearings, while at the same time urge income redistribution because “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25). They cannot call Republicans “theocrats” for trying to save Terri Schiavo while they also claim John the Baptist endorsed their welfare state when he said, “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none …” (Luke 3:11).

Just as Democrats are telling voters they are unserious about national security through their over-the-top rhetoric about Iraq, the Democrats’ “God card” gambit demonstrates to the American public that they are not serious about matters of faith in public life.

What does this whole misstep tell us?

For one, it reveals that many of those making these mistakes have no principles. How serious can you be about leftist-style "separation of church and state" (meaning that if you pray about it, you can't or shouldn't vote about it) while simultaneously claiming your politics are, to quote Jim Wallis, "God's Politics"? How serious is your criticism that "the right" is claiming to be God's very voice on earth, if you incessantly refer to your ever political stance as "prophetic" (a habit nearly completely absent from conservative speech)?

For another, it betrays the low regard that such leftists hold the population. I remember when Harry Conick Jr. derided rock & roll as simplistic to produce. After a forray into the subject, with much less commercial success, he emerged chastened, saying rock was harder than he thought.

Perhaps similarly, non-believing (or even often faith-hostile) Democrats apparently think there's little more to convincing faith-centered voters than just asserting your policies are what God wants, and dropping in a bible verse here and there. "This religion thing is easy, religious people are simpletons. Just tell 'em God supports us and quote the bible."

But the machine isn't quite that simple to operate. As many prominent non-religious Democrats have learned by experience, it's easy to get your fingers pinched in the wheels of your own machinations.

Underlying those missteps, I think there is an unwillingness for the left to actually engage serious questions raised by your average Christian. Questions like:

• Why are you so deeply focused on passages in the bible you think relate to economic duties, and yet totally ignore those which teach sexual morality and character? Why do you argue one set of morals must be forced on people by law, but the not the other?
• If the bible is your basis, then how do you ignore its repeated implications that life begins within the womb? How does that mesh with your policies?
• When the prophets say we should take care of the poor, why should we be convinced they meant we should take money from unbelievers, under threat of imprisionment, and then employ a massive, unbelieving, secular government to carry out this sacred duty?
• Why do you go against passages like Samuel 8 and John 6 which teach that a love of big goverment, and demands for guaranteed, ongoing free bread for the poor flow from a direct rejection of the kingdom of God?
• If you haven't even read the bible, and don't (for example) even know that the book Job is found in the Old Testament, then why do you think you have the spiritual authority to lecture to and rebuke others, who do?
• Why do your claims about needing to oppose "oppression" not extend to opposing actual dictatorships? What about fighting for oppressed Christians and other minorities in Muslim countries?
• Which is it you demand: "Separation of church and state" or "God's Politics"? I'm getting confused here.

These seem to me to be reasonable questions, simple questions, and obvious questions -- and yet they're questions the political left aren't answering. I don't just mean secular spokemen like Carville who appear to have just jumped on the "God" bandwagon. I'm also talking about those leftist spokespeople who appear steeped in religion, like Jim Wallis and Bob Edgar.