This is the fourth time I've started a response to the Rosin/Kuo dialogue, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes the fourth time I discard a response as well. An examination of the role of evangelicalism in American civic life inevitably unearths the fumbling, awkward transformation of my own religio-political philosophy and forces me to deal with the uncertainties that yet linger -- and what does a good evangelical fear more than uncertainty?

Yes, I am one of those dreaded beasts, Americus Evangelicus. Even more terrifying, I was raised in a rather fundamentalist flavor of Christianity, much like the students of Patrick Henry, and through my childhood and adolescence I took for granted an inseparable view of government and religion. Because of my simple and fervent faith and my early interest in political issues, I was convinced -- before reaching my teenage years, even -- that the dictates of social and economic conservativism could be found somewhere between the Sermon on the Mount and John's apocalyptic dream. (If not there, surely they were lodged somewhere in the Old Testament, then...) I lionized those Christian politicians who wore their faith on their sleeves. I lamented Big Government. I feared the U.N.

I traipsed off to college -- a public school, thank goodness -- still clutching tightly to that black-and-white vision of faith and politics. I never exactly renounced either, but somewhere between Reinhold Niebuhr and C.S. Lewis and Simone Weil and St. Augustine, my world shifted. While I would still be considered theologically and politically conservative (though my views on both have been liberalized), the two are now very much bifurcated, in a manner similar to Luther's conception of the Two Kingdoms: I am a citizen of heaven, and as such, I am personally called to live by standards of grace and righteousness; I am also a citizen of earth, which is governed by an independent dispensation of justice and law.

Why is this separation important? It's less because the U.S. is in danger of falling to theocracy or because the presence of religion in the public sphere will do serious damage to the country's liberty. No, a conflagration of the two will do massive and irreperable harm to Christianity itself. It takes very little knowledge of history to recognize the indirect correlation between the purity and sanctity and spiritual effectiveness of the church and its level of political power at any particular point in time. It takes very little knowledge of sociology to notice that this cause-effect relationship is still in play today. This is an old argument -- it was put forth by early American Baptists, ironically -- but it holds as true today as ever. C.S. Lewis once condemned the idea of "Christianity And...", meaning people whose faith was permanently attached to (and therefore subordinated by) a cause or an ideology. Christ called us to join his kingdom, not to install his kingdom on earth, and to attempt the latter is, in my humble opinion, actually quite idolatrous.

Most of my (still rather conservative) political beliefs, then, are justified quite independently of my faith. I support free markets not because they are Biblically mandated, but because I have read Friedman and Hayek. I supported the war in Iraq not because of any eschatalogical aspirations but because, well, I'm an easily duped idiot. My fellow Christians frequently accuse me of compartmentalization or of cognitive dissonance: If I am truly Christian, they contend, I cannot pick and choose which portions of my life are colored by my faith. To them, I respond that I don't. There are a few, fundamental issues that are inextricable from my faith-inspired moral compass, one of which is -- yes, predictably -- abortion. Yet my abhorrence of abortion is reflected less in monomaniacal pro-life voting (it is a position that carries a great deal of weight for me, though I'm far from a single-issue voter) and more in support of people and organizations and institutions that counsel young women to consider alternatives to abortion or, even better, preventatives to unwanted pregnancy. Politics stands downwind of culture. As evidenced so clearly in Iraq right now, society cannot be transformed by top-down approaches; we must start at the bottom and let it spread upward organically.

And this is perhaps the greatest bone I have to pick with those Christians who insist upon melding faith and politics. As Mr. Kuo intimated, it's just too easy. Power is naturally seductive, and using it for the ultimate betterment of society is both corruptive and, ultimately, ineffective. Much more difficult -- but much more Biblical -- is the commandment to love our neighbor and the commission to make disciples of the nations. Christ did not die for society or culture; he died for individuals such as you or I. And until we recognize this fundamental fact of the faith, we are doomed to be poor citizens of heaven and poor citizens of earth.