The culture wars are not back - they never left.

The notion that the religious right was growing tame and seeking a consensus died when its theocrats muscled the Republican Party into nominating Sarah Palin. What some writers like blogger Jim Wallis of Sojourners termed an openness to dialogue turned out to be a tactical retreat, a short-term lowering of the volume.

But the leaders of the religious left weren’t fooled. Fundamentalism is institutionalized; it will not go away even if Democrats win in a landslide in November. Conservative evangelicals have their own publishing houses, think tanks, universities, and law schools. Frederick Clarkson, journalist and editor of a new book on this question, warns that the “movement’s institutional infrastructure” and the “generations of political activists they have trained and the politicians they have elected to office will be with us for a long time.” It is “unlikely to change much, even with the recent rise in the fortunes of the Democratic Party.”

“Dispatches from the Religious Left” calls for strengthening the religious left to contest fundamentalism and press the Democratic Party to take a liberal turn.