Conservative Christian pundits are on a future-defining, existential-question-posing spree this week over Christianity’s future as a relevant force in American religious and political life, thanks largely to a New York Times story and a big oops from seeker-friendly megachurch guru Bill Hybels.

Pushing the discussion toward its philosophical nadir is David Kirkpatrick’s piece in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. It has set off riotous debate over whether the Religious Right’s grip on GOP politics is weakening. The heirs apparent of the Dobson-Robertson-Falwell triumvirate, the article says, are guys like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels — guys who believe wholeheartedly in the adage “Mix religion and politics, and you get politics.”

GetReligion’s Terry Mattingly argues Kirkpatrick’s story points more to a solidifying of the battle lines already within Christianity. It’s less about politics and more about doctrine, he says. He lists three questions: Are biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Is salvation found through Jesus Christ alone? Is sex outside of marriage a sin? Then he promises the answers from guys like Hybels will be “much more interesting than the political questions that change from decade to decade.”

A discussion has since materialized over Hybel’s recent admission that his Willow Creek Church, widely considered the most influential in the country, may have misunderstood what people are looking for inside its walls. It’s led to a Willow paradigm shift that Hybels calls the “wake-up call of my adult life,” and conservatives especially are asking about the implications.

The Hybels model has been to equate church participation with personal growth. But now Hybels said the data indicates that his church may have put “millions of dollars” programs that haven’t done much of anything. On a 10-point scale, non-Christians — the apple of Hybels’ seeker-friendly eye — ranked Willow at the top. Growing Christians were less smitten.

Nonetheless, Willow Creek Pastor Greg Hawkins responded to critics, saying that while they as church leaders goofed, this wasn’t going to detract one iota from their seeker-friendly model. He said Willow still “is not just seeker-focused. We are seeker-obsessed.”

Bob Burney, a pastor and radio host, sums up the frustrations of conservative Christians that Hybels will encounter the more people take their cues, religious or political, from him: “It looks like someone still might not get it.”

Last night, Ron Paul delivered an incredibly cogent and winsome interview on The Tonight Show. I like him more and more. My favorite line from the clip: Paul says, “There probably is a risk that I could win.” Republicans need more irony like that. Until I determine how to post video, you can watch the fabulous 8-minute interview here.

Hillary Clinton faltered in last night’s debate, and her opponents pounced.

John Edwards accused Clinton of dishonesty, saying voters “deserve a president of the United States that they know will tell them the truth, and won’t say one thing one time and something different at a different time.” She gave him ammunition against her during the debate itself, when she first defended driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, then said, “I did not say that it should be done.”

Even Barack Obama said he was “confused” by Clinton’s answer. Pundits have been telling Barack Obama to toughen up, and it seems he listened. He questioned the fact that she locked up her private papers in her husband’s presidential library, and he called her secrecy a “problem:” “We have just gone through one of the most secretive administrations in our history.” He said Clinton is part of the political gridlock his campaign is trying to break: “Part of the job of the next president is to break the gridlock and to get Democrats and independents and Republicans to start working together to solve these big problems like health care or climate change or energy.”

Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani then joined the bashing. Mitt Romney said Clinton was “tap dancing so much that I thought I turned it to Dancing with the Stars.” Rudy Giuliani was almost impressed: “By the end of the night, she took different positions in front of the same audience. It was pretty amazing. I mean, in politics I’ve never quite seen that before.”

One candidate came to Clinton’s rescue, however: Bill Richardson, who said Democrats should stay positive.

In earlier times, public shaming was an accepted — and effective — deterrent for unsociable behavior. People caught stealing or in adultery, for example, were clapped in stocks in the public square.

Recently, I read where a Texas judge is sentencing convicted criminals to stand on street corners holding signs confessing their crimes. Now, in El Cajon, Calif., the police department is posting on its website the names, photographs, and case details of women arrested for prostitution. (more…)

More good humor from The New Yorker: “The 2008 Campaign Quiz.” Here’s the first question…

1. Two of these quotes are from Mike Gravel. Which one is from Mitt Romney?

(a) “I am prepared to tell you that Americans are getting fatter and dumber. I have no problem saying that.”

(b) “I think we at one point were fish coming out of the slime.”

(c) “Gosh, I love America!”

These days, it’s hard to tell the difference between satire and the real thing.  Take the quiz here.

In “Portrait in Evil: My Story,” a very, very short story, a jilted, hardened narrator that seems to be the fictionalized voice of Karl Rove, tells us:

It’s not easy being the bad guy. The public hates you, and no wonder, fed as they are a steaming stream of media bile that maliciously misrepresents all your plots and machinations. Adults, in turn, poison the minds of the young, who every day joyously play-act your murder. All you have is your minions, who do your bidding, sure, but out of fear and not out of respect or, dare I say it, love.

Another great satire, not only of Rove, but of the Rove image created by so much of the left. 

The Rev. Sam Childers has rescued more than 800 children from child-soldier recruiters and kidnappers, sheltering them in the orphanage he operates in Sudan’s Darfur region. Now the FAA says Childers owes the U.S. government $28,000. The Washington Times reports:

For more than a decade, he has transported needed supplies to operate the orphanage’s power generator in a clearly marked household plastic container. That is until April, when 3 quarts of motor oil, two bottles of diesel treatment and a can of spray lubricant in the crate were confiscated by airline screeners. Mr. Childers, president of World Missions Shekinah Fellowship, apologized in a subsequent letter to U.S. government officials, saying he was not aware the supplies were classified as “hazardous materials” and illegal to ship by commercial plane. The minister thought the matter was resolved, but six months later, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) notified Mr. Childers that he will be fined $28,000 for the transgression.

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