Wtihout the religious right Republicans would not be claiming victory after the 2002 election.

The political culture of the United States has been so seriously distorted by the religious right that the welfare of the country, indeed of the world itself, is being jeopardized. Without the help of the religious right George Bush would not be president and would not now, after the 2002 mid-term elections, be able to revel in the congressional victories that have returned the Senate to Republican control and retained control in the House of Representatives.

The Republican Party should be ashamed of itself for believing that it has a mandate to govern, to declare war on Iraq, to promote policies favorable to business interests rather than what's best for the American people, when it has been elected by appealing to the negative, mean-spirited, irrational forces of the religious right. Religion and religious people are being used and abused by this party which could not get its candidates elected on the basis of its own ideas and policies.

And the religious right has become an anti-witness to the content and spirit of Christian faith. It is time for people of faith to be clear about this skewing of American politics, to actively reject the teachings of the religious right, and work to reduce its influence in political culture today.

The type of public theology represented by the religious right, undergirded by those known as "neoconservatives", is bad for the church, bad for the country, bad for the world. I will be supporting these statements with further articles in the coming days.