"Prophetic witness, the distant, transcendent voice

that calls on the nation to repent and return to righteousness, is impossible if religion is comfortable. The religious voice is destroyed when religion yields to the temptation to be important, to shape the outcome of elections, to fit snugly into the culture, to make filling the seats on the Sabbath day the highest goal."

-Stephen L. Carter, God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics, pg. 185.