The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all. The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the movement as the civil rights struggle of the 21st century.

John Ralph Willis, Princeton University Professor of Near Eastern Studies, has described the "apparent paradox" that jihad wars and razzias (p.343) -rationalized as struggles to liberate men from unbelief-became, through the mass enslavement intrinsic to these campaigns, "a device to deprive men of freedom." And freedom, in the Muslim conception, "being perfect slavery" to Allah, the sole (distant) hope of earthly freedom from the bondage and humiliation of slavery for the subjugated infidel-

On July 9 Nate entered the world, and his birthparents, working with the Cradle in Evanston, chose McDonagh and Smith to adopt him.

"We were very lucky," Smith said. "Everyone--including our families--was very supportive."

Not everyone views their domestic situation so benevolently. In recent weeks a flurry of activity has focused new attention on same-sex adoption, which is being touted as the next battleground in the nation's culture wars.

To his credit, Wallis wants Christians to embrace a comprehensive social ethic. He does not seek to exchange conservative moral issues for liberal moral issues. The Christian ethic he advocates penetrates the boardroom and the budget, as well as the bedroom.

As the 2006 midterm elections loom, could evangelical politics achieve the synthesis Wallis seeks, marrying traditional positions on personal moral questions to moral commitments to end poverty?