Is the Christian Right retooling, regrouping or just rebranding? Leaders of two dozen organizations announced this past week the latest alliteration iteration of concerned conservative Christians. They are calling it the Freedom Federation, a direct descendant of the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition and Values Voters. Founders say the new group will have a broader membership and a kinder, gentler, more nonpartisan approach than its ancestors. ‘The stereotypical media-exacerbated image of the angry white evangelical will be replaced by an evangelical movement that will reconcile uncompromised values of compassion, truth with mercy, and righteousness with justice,’ Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told reporters last week. We shall see. But what’s most interesting about the Freedom Federation isn’t who’s participating. It’s the conspicuous absence of evangelical America’s three most influential organizations — Focus on the Family, the National Association of Evangelicals, and Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church network, all of which seem to be making new and sincere efforts to take a more inclusive, less judgmental approach to social and political issues. Jim Daly, the man who is following James Dobson as president of Focus on the Family, recently praised President […]