"SHOT THRU THE HEART! (And you're to blame!)"

Words.

"...A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 38 percent of Americans believe there is “too much expression of religious faith and prayer from political leaders.” This is up from 29 percent in 2010.

...The problem is not, as some have alleged, a secret theocratic plot. It is the regression of evangelical politicians — and politicians appealing to evangelicals — to the worst habits of the religious right circa 1980. They jostle to claim a divine calling. They appear in the pulpit with pastors who talk ignorantly of America as a “Christian nation.” Some, when they lose, hint darkly of anti-religious persecution. This is the behavior of Jerry Falwell on a bad day. Americans are right to find it discrediting.

But the Pew survey does not reveal a suddenly anti-clerical nation. Americans may find the return of the religious right problematic, but religious beliefs still shape American politics in various ways.

...maybe the message of Americans on religion and politics isn’t that confusing after all. They don’t like sectarianism. But they also reject secularism. There is, fortunately, a distinctly American alternative: religious pluralism, humanized by tolerance."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Politicians giving religion a bad name