This ought to be interesting. What is your visceral reaction to this image?

I ask because it’s part of the cover of a new book by my friend Patrick Hynes. In Defense of the Religious Right is a project that I played a small part in bringing to life.

We were having lunch at the Henley, across the street from the Cato Institute, and he told me about a writing project that he wanted to undertake, a series of articles maybe…

“You know, that would make a better book,” I said.

And it did. Hynes is a veteran political consultant who argues that the religious right is not an albatross around the GOP’s neck but the only part of the coalition that really holds up its end of the bargain.

In terms of raw votes, he argues, if ours was a Parliamentary democracy, the (oh, let’s call it the) Christian Coalition would be the single largest concern and the natural party of government.

Hynes also tackles a lot of stock criticisms of the religious right, including the latest hip notion that all religious rightists are theocrats. In the context of American history, he explains, they’re really moderates.

And on major questions of the day, most American conservative Christians are a whole lot closer to the mainstream than their critics.

Obviously, I’m not a disinterested observer. We share a publisher and I lent a hand in the editing.

But I think In Defense of the Religious Right is an entertaining book and a necessary one. I only hope that when Amazon gets around to making a “Better Together” recommendation, it will lash it together with In Defense of Hypocrisy.