It used to be motherhood and apple pie. God was what you battled and fought wars for. Remember? More people have died in wars waged in the name of God than for any other reason. Obviously, God's agenda was not pushed by those battlefield casualties, and neither is it being advanced today by politicians who need to quench their thirst for power even by sacrilegious means.

The climate is ready for heightened religiosity in this country. Moral and ethical absolutes are gone, and a melding of religion and politics is being sold to fill the vacuum. In a parable, Jesus likens the faith of some to seeds that land on rocky ground. Without much soil, they sprout quickly, but when the sun rises, they are scorched and wither away, because they have no roots.

We have to be incredibly skeptical and careful of politicians who use religion as a means to advance their own agendas. (Let us not forget the tyrants, despots and dictators of history who all rose to power with a god on their side.) They use religion to polarize people rather than to unite them around common themes, which build communities and society. Their roots are superficial, and once scrutinized, they wither away.

God's children include Democrats and Republicans, left and right, young and old. God's agenda is not a political one. It calls for peace. It strives for harmony. It works for justice. It operates with love. This agenda is pushed in the most sacred of institutions: inside the human being. If the agenda can be advanced inside each of us, the politicians can argue and filibuster all they want. Society is strengthened, and we win.

FATHER VAZKEN MOVSESIAN

Armenian Church Youth Ministries

Glendale

President Bush has been accused of wearing his religion on his sleeve. As a result, many members of the media tend to criticize him. But, as I see it, such media members are simply refusing to cut him the same slack they cut for past presidents, such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both of whom were linked prominently to religion and to religious leaders.

Where, one must wonder, did former President Jimmy Carter wear his religion? Has religion ever been more prominent in the presidency than in the Carter administration?

And, didn't Clinton suddenly become very religious when he got caught in his lying-under-oath mess? How can we forget the image of him going to counseling with a trio of ministers or going to church with his big black Bible in his hands? When is it OK with the media for a leader to be religious?

How is it different for a Republican to meet with religious-right leaders than it is for a Democrat to meet with religious-left leaders?

Our nation has had "religious" presidents, and we have had those who seemed to have little or no religion. And, it is obvious that both political parties use religion sometimes in rather dubious ways to try to make certain political points. This has always been the case. Somehow the Republic has survived. I suspect it will continue to do so.

THE REV. THOMAS E. WITHERSPOON

Unity Church of the Valley

La Crescenta

My feeling is that Senate Republicans, and those in the House and especially in the White House are blatantly using ignorant people's religious convictions as a way to gain even more political power than they already have.

While living lives that could hardly be called religious, they pontificate in public about family values. Even though many are divorced themselves, they claim homosexual marriage will ruin the institution. They privately plot to destroy the filibuster so they can get extreme-right-wing judges appointed to remove even a minimal check on their policies.

Once there is no protection for minority views, they plan to eliminate Roe vs. Wade, removing reproductive choices. Also on the agenda, I believe, is the dismantling of Social Security because Republicans have always resented its success. It gives lie to the "trickle-down" economic theory and clearly demonstrates the societal benefit of helping the least prosperous among us. Other hindrances to further big-business profits are the minimum wage, worker protections and safety regulations, environmental protections and welfare programs. All are in jeopardy from the neo-cons.

Keeping people poor also means more military enlistments, lessening the need for an unpopular draft.

Inserting religion into the public schools and pushing vouchers for private religious schools are part of the same political agenda. The result of this interference is an undermining of the public school system and a "dumbing down" of the population. That makes it easier for manipulative techniques to work in subsequent elections.

Sadly, this misuse of religion has been pretty successful. Many people vote Republican against their self interest. The only Americans well served by this administration are the extremely wealthy. Obviously many people think they're voting for positive religious values when in actuality they're supporting the excessive greed of power-mad hypocrites.

SHARON WEISMAN

Atheist

Glendale

When reading about the recent Senate impasse, a statement came to mind from the 2nd century sage, Rabbi Gamliel. He said: "Be wary of those in power, for they befriend a person only for their own benefit; they seem to be friends when it is to their advantage, but they do not stand by a man in his hour of need."

This statement does not apply to all politicians, as most of them are good-hearted people who sincerely serve their constituents. However, there are definitely some who fall into this category.

Watching the Senate morph into a three-ring circus is disheartening and utterly shameful. Seeing senators use religion as a political weapon is unforgivable. Religion serves as a beacon of light to millions of Americans who are searching for the truth. When this beacon is tarnished, its light is dimmed, and countless people suffer.

My advice to all Americans of faith, Republican and Democrat alike, is to avoid politicians in highly charged circumstances. They may seem to befriend you, but their motives are inevitably superficial. I believe that we should never drag what is holy and sacred into the halls of politics.

SIMCHA BACKMAN

Chabad Jewish Center

Glendale

This use of the political process for anti-religious rhetoric is dangerous. The fact that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist took part in a telecast whose organizing theme was that those who oppose some of President Bush's judicial nominees are engaged in an assault on "people of faith" is disingenuous at best.

Frist should not have given legitimacy to those who claim they hold a monopoly on faith.

Such demagogues assert (for example, in the words of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast) that there is a vast conspiracy by the courts "to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms." There is no such conspiracy. The reality is that they have been unable to ram through the Senate the most extreme of the president's nominees, and now they are spinning new claims out of thin air.

Another example: In April, the Christian Coalition convened a conference in Washington entitled, "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," and their special guest speaker was House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay. When leaders of any political party lend their imprimatur to such outrageous claims, including, at the conference, calls for mass impeachment of federal judges, it should be of deep concern to all who care about religion.

RABBI JONATHAN BIATCH

Temple Sinai of Glendale

I'm beginning to wonder when the great middle in this wonderful country will decide that it has had enough!

The fact that seven moderate Republican Senators and seven moderate Democratic senators worked out a compromise to keep Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's use of the so-called "nuclear option" off the table is a great step in the right direction. The trouble is that the so-called "religious right" wants to overturn the Supreme Court's landmark Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973 (a truly unconservative thing to do, to overturn what has been the law of the land for more than 30 years!), and those folks don't care how it is done, even if they run roughshod over Senate rules that have been in effect since 1789!

What is so interesting to me is the fact that the political party that advocates fewer rules and fewer taxes (the GOP) and less government interference in your business or my business is also the political party that wants to stick its nose into the most personal of choices: whether to carry a baby to term or to have an abortion. I am obviously pro-choice and I am an American Christian, and I hate like hell the implication that because I don't believe the way the "religious right" does that I'm somehow ungodly.

THE REV. SKIP LINDEMAN

Congregational Church of the Lighted Window

United Church of Christ, La Cañada Flintridge