Sarah Posner writes on religion and politics for the American Prospect.  The short piece pasted below features The Matthew 25 Network, a group of evangelical Christians with a unique political twist.  You can find more background on the Matthew 25 group in this slightly older piece Ms. Posner wrote for Slate.

Brian McLaren, an influential Christian writer and activist who has caught the eye of Barack Obama, is one of the Christian leaders supporting the Matthew 25 Network.  Brian and I first met at an Emergent gathering in New Mexico a couple of years ago.  Although he was working on his Sunday sermon, he graciously laid down his laptop and listened to the story of Friends of Justice.  We have bumped into one another on several occasions since then and exchange emails every month or two.  I recommend his writing highly.

Religious Leaders Petition Palin: Will You Please Start Acting Like A Christian?

The Matthew 25 Network, a Christian political action committee that is supporting Barack Obama, last week released a letter to Sarah Palin, which, in so many words, called on her to start acting like she follows Jesus’s teachings instead of Karl Rove’s. The signers, religious leaders of different Christian traditions, said they were “extremely disappointed in Sarah Palin’s divisive, sarcastic, and often deceptive address at the Republican National Convention,” and asked Palin as “not only as a political figure, but also as a prominent Christian, to recommit herself to campaigning in good faith, with a strong commitment to truth-telling.” The letter cited Ephesians 4:25, which reads, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are all of the same body.”

One of the chief signers, Brian McLaren, is a prominent figure in a movement known as “emerging church”, an eclectic and growing subset of Christians who eschew the theological literalism of the religious right as well as its politics. In an interview this summer, McLaren described what propelled him to support Obama. Referring to U.S. foreign policy after 9/11, McLaren told me that “some of our darker motivations are at work in our national psyche so that fear and even revenge and a desire to reestablish dominance — I think those are dark motivations, as a Christian.”