Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of conservative American evangelicalism,editorializes “the obvious”: George W. Bush is not Lord, and “God Bless America” is not the Doxology. So far, so simple; but CT goes further, rebuking Christian Right oupost (their words) Family Research Council; Rod Parsley, the Ohio pastor who was instrumental in winning his state for Bush and who’s a national leader in the fight against gay marriage; and Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

“What if the true face of the Christian right in America is not that of Dr. James Dobson or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson; not that of an aging, comb-over preacher orange with pancake makeup, smiling orca rows of ungodly white teeth on The O’Reilly Factor or Hardball? Nor that of spittle-flecked Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas, roaring that God hates fags? What if the true face of the Christian right is, instead, that of a twenty-four-year-old religious-studies graduate student at New York University?”

Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet on “The Young and the Sexless” in Rolling Stone.

Darcey Steinke: “Up until that year, my most developed internal incantations had to do with fantasizing about sex. Maybe because of this, my first attempts to pray resembled scenes from a Victorian bordello. My cloud was purple, like the purple smoke I’d once seen at a Prince concert, and I imagined myself lying in front of the swirling mass in a green velvet gown. I rested there on a warm blanket and was comforted by the idea that, though hidden in vapor, I was in the presence of God…”