Knowing Sam as I do, I'm not surprised that he spent a night in prison. He has been a strong supporter of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative® launched by Prison Fellowship in his home state and has stayed in those prisons as well. A practicing Roman Catholic, Brownback understands that a Christian worldview isn’t bound by the categories that have rendered American politics empty and stale. Instead, he puts his faith into action, following in the great tradition of William Wilberforce, the English parliamentarian and a hero of mine who led the crusade to abolish the slave trade. Like Wilberforce, Sam knows that the way we treat the "least of these" in our midst is how we measure the quality of our society.

Ironically, on the same weekend that Brownback spent a night in prison promoting faith - based programs, the New York Times published a grossly misleading attack on the InnerChange Freedom Initiative. The contrast between competing visions of the common good couldn't have been more stark: The Times ignores real - world results in order to maintain its slanted version of separation of church and state. Brownback, while also committed to this separation, insists that it doesn't require the "removal of faith from the public square."

Not unless your goal, that is, is to build more prisons.