requires the ability to experience the sensation of shame upon recognizing the errors of one's actions.

We're talking about New York Liberal elites here.

"Many of us who didn't vote for him, and who thought George W. Bush was unfairly blamed for everything that went wrong, nevertheless thought Obama could invite renewed respect for the office."

Then you weren't paying attention.

"No what bothers me is they ignore their own rules in their own lives..."

If you know enought to know that they're doing it wrong, then you're responsible for doing it right, yourself.

"And they ignore our nation’s commitment to keep religious out of public life."

Where is that "commitment" either stated or enshrined outside of the vain imaginations of your own head?

"The multiphasic manner in which our children use their brains is rendering them incapable of deep, sustained critical thinking during which they make connections between ideas."

Brilliantly stated. I have observed this phenomenon through 36 years of street evangelizing.

Back in the 70's the fear was in getting punched out; today it is the fear that there is not enought time to lay the groundwork necessary for them to process the information you wish to communicate to them due to their inability to grasp deeper concepts and to link them coherently.

Add to that the fact that they have been systematically conditioned to think otherwise of themselves and the prospect is daunting.

but can it love you back?

"I WISH Christians acted according to Christ’s instructions! The country would be a marvelous place if people of faith actually followed their own rules."

At least they actually HAVE rules. Or is that what bothers you about them?

Perhaps you have a point in criticizing the excesse of the church throughout history, but those societies that have done away with the church's influence haven't seemed to usher in any golden age of mankind, either and under OUR particular current experiment in humanistic thinking, the negative social pathologies only seem to be increasing rather than receding.

As a former Roman Catholic who still has a warm spot in his heart for the Church, I applaud their stance and can understand the calls for the other denominations to "go and do likewise"

However, if they were to become more active politically at the expense of their true calling, it wouldn't be a rebuilding of the current crumbling foundations and a putting out of the fire raging in the house, but a building of a new house entirely, and that not of God.