Some useful thoughts from Jonah Goldberg on the “social gospel.”

[Update a few minutes later]

His last point is an important one, I think (and why Obama may actually have a prayer of being elected, sadly):

Anyway, I guess the point is that the politicized Christian rhetoric, or Christianized political rhetoric isn’t unique to this obscure black church in Chicago or even to the work of black theologians generally. Rather, it is much more central to the progressive tradition generally. As Joe Knippenberg and other’s have argued Obama’s Christianity is the Christianity of Jim Wallis and others who think God is a welfare state liberal. And while I can understand why many on the right would want to paint Obama as “out there,” I’m not as convinced that that’s the case. Indeed, I think the more lasting and serious threat comes from an impulse that’s much closer to home, as it were.

Still, I think that his war views will sink him, if his social, soft fascist views don’t.

[Update Monday evening]

Some observations about Obama’s “sacrifice.” But hey, isn’t sacrifice what messiahs do?