By Berry Craig

CLINTON, Ky. – Attending "church on a frequent basis" means "YOU ARE A REPUBLICAN!" says a newspaper ad from the Hickman County GOP.

Elsewhere in the Bluegrass State, Republican Christian soldiers passed out campaign ammo in the form of little cards warning, "A wise man’s heart directs him to the right, but the foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left." The admonition is from Ecclesiastes 10:2, the card says.

The ad was in The Hickman County Gazette newspaper, published in Clinton, the county seat. Clinton is in deep western Kentucky.

The cards came from a Republican meeting in central Kentucky, according to blogger Mark Nickolas. A Democrat, he runs BluegrassReport.org, a popular political Internet website in Kentucky.

Nickolas doesn’t pull punches. He disses Democrats, too.

"The self-declared moral superiority of the Republican party is coming out in force," he said of the ad, inviting BluegrassReport.org fans to tell him about similar ads in other papers. More ads "would suggest it’s a shameless coordinated effort from the Republican Party of Kentucky," he wrote.

Nickolas said the cards are "offensive" and disingenuous.

Whoever printed the cards must have flunked history. "Left" (meaning liberal in the U.S. and socialist-secular in Europe) and "right" (conservative stateside and capitalist-religious in the Old World) date to the French Revolution, not Old Testament times.

The ad and cards are politics-as-usual in Kentucky. From Clinton to Catlettsburg, Republicans commonly campaign on what one of my union brothers calls "the Three Gs -- God, Guns and Gays." (Conservative Democrats pander likewise.)

The Hickman County GOP ad also said "YOU ARE A REPUBLICAN!" if you "believe in the sanctity of marriage which is defined as one man and one woman" and "believe that law-abiding Americans should maintain the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms."

Regrettably, the party of Lincoln and Liberty has largely become the party of Bush and bigotry. "The most disturbing thing about the modern day Republican Party is how they’ve allowed religious extremists to take a stranglehold over their party, the effect of which is clear in [the ad and the card]…," Nickolas wrote. "Sadly, while thoughtful Republicans will privately express their disdain about this development, it’s hard to find a credible one having the guts to say so publicly."

John Danforth is one. He is a retired Missouri senator and diplomat and the author of a new book, Faith and Politics: How the "Moral Values" Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together.

Danforth, who is also an ordained Episcopal priest, says it’s time for Republicans of the Jesus-loves-me-but-he-can’t-stand-you persuasion to end their holy war against liberals. "Good Christians can be liberal and good Christians can be conservative," he wrote. "A church that practices reconciliation must be inclusive enough to welcome both. But today's conservative Christians do not practice reconciliation. They are combative and they are divisive. So I believe it is important for Christians across the political spectrum to recommit themselves to the ministry of reconciliation, and to do so in words and actions."

Not surprisingly, the Republican-friendly Religious Right is in high dudgeon over Danforth’s book. Richard Land, whom the Washington Post dubbed "the combative voice of the Southern Baptist Convention and confidant of White House political guru Karl Rove," declaimed Danforth as a sore loser.

Land told the Post that Danforth was "what was wrong with the Republican Party and why they were a minority party."

Danforth is not a liberal. Newsweek says he is a moderate, but that’s by Republican standards. He championed Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. He is anti-abortion, and he seldom voted labor’s way in the senate.

Danforth insists he isn’t a Bush basher. "I like President Bush," he told Newsweek.

But Danforth can’t abide the "takeover of the Republican Party by the Christian Right," according to his book. "….There is a difference between being a Christian in politics and having a Christian agenda for politics," he also wrote. "….God calls us to be faithful without handing us a political agenda. At least that's how I see faith and politics, but it is not how everyone sees faith and politics.

"Christian conservatives believe that God's will can be reduced to a political program and that they have done so. In their minds, there is indeed a Christian agenda for America and in recent years, they have succeeded in pressing it upon the Republican Party. It is an agenda comprised of wedge issues, which, when hammered relentlessly in political forums, divide the American people."

Faith and Politics: How the "Moral Values" Debate Divides America and How to Move Forward Together is from Viking Books. It retails for $24.95.

The author -- Berry Craig is a professor of history at the West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah and a member of AFT-Kentucky and KEA-NEA . He and his wife, Melinda, are members of the Witherspoon Society.