It was the eve of the Desert Storm invasion of 1991. My friend was a Navy SEAL who had seen plenty of combat, including losing several comrades in Panama the year before.

He and I were discussing President Bush’s announcement that we would liberate Kuwait from Iraq . I was hesitant about it because America had never fought a war against Muslims. I explained to my friend that religious fervor is the highest form of motivation. It causes people to fight with tenacity and believe in ultimate victory even in the face of certain defeat.

His response was simply, “Yes, but they are terrible soldiers. They aren’t disciplined or well trained and we will easily defeat them.”

Since that conversation years ago, our country has fought several wars against Muslims. We lost in Somalia , we probably ended in a draw in Croatia , we were blindsided on 9/11, we won in Afghanistan and we won in Iraq .

When I say we won in Iraq , I mean we toppled the government and occupied the country. That’s the traditional definition of winning a war. Of course, President Bush (the younger) is attempting to do much more. His goal is to set up a democracy in Iraq that he believes will serve as a model to the rest of the Middle East .

It won’t work. Our war against Muslim terrorism is a war that must be fought. The 20th century will be remembered in history as the war against communism, but the 21st century will be the war against radical Islam.

We can defeat them in battle. We can even defeat them using very limited warfare tactics. The problem is that defeating Muslims militarily only fuels their religious fervor to continue the war.

The president is also trying very hard to keep this war from being about religion. He has succeeded from our side of the Atlantic, but that will never work in the Middle East . We in the West can think in secular terms and easily separate things like politics and religion. In the East, those spheres of thought have never been separate and Islamic theology will not allow such thinking.

To Muslims, an attack or invasion by the United States is an attack by Christian infidels requiring all Muslims to respond with a Holy War.

On our side of the ocean we’re just trying to keep them from attacking us again on American soil. On their side of the ocean, Holy War has been declared and Allah demands they fight until all the infidels (that’s us) are dead or converted.

The war against Muslim terrorism will continue for decades. Any attempts to impose democracy in Muslim countries will fail because Islamic theology and eschatology won’t allow a form of government based upon the right of self-determination.

My Navy SEAL friend was right, they are terrible soldiers. But I was also right, they will keep fighting.

A noticeable change is coming to American politics this year; the Democrats are getting religion. Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John Kerry have each hired religious outreach advisors.

Their mission, according to World Magazine, is to “convince white evangelical voters that a liberal agenda is consistent with the Bible and that the expressed Christian devotion of Democratic candidates is authentic.

The Democratic Party of the 19th and early 20th century was known as the party of the people. Its base was made up of mostly blue collar middle class voters who believed in God and country.

But during the cultural upheaval of the 1960s, secularists ascended to power in the Democratic Party and led it in that direction. The result was a national party platform that many Biblical Christians could not agree with. Support for abortion and homosexuality are the two most noticeable unbiblical stands taken by the party.

This does not mean that every member of the party agrees with the national party platform. Many solid Christians have continued to maintain membership while disagreeing with some of the platform stands taken by the national leadership.

In the past four decades, most of the public faces of the Democratic Party have touted separation of church and state and, in some cases, even been antagonistic toward Christianity. Since a significant part of their voter base seemed to resonate with that message, the party continued to move to the left politically.

So what has brought this new attitude toward faith? The most notable event was the 2004 election in which evangelical Christians voted in record numbers and mostly voted for George W. Bush. It was clear that church going Christians were the deciding factor in the election.

So after losing two presidential elections they thought they would win, Democratic strategists are apparently convinced they can, and will, win back a significant portion of the Christian vote.

Former missionary Burns Strider is Mrs. Clinton’s Director of Religious Outreach. Strider easily quotes scriptures such as Micah 6:8, “to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God,” as Biblical support for the liberal political agenda of the Democratic Party.

Burns grew up attending Sunday school in Mississippi. “My belief in the Democratic Party and my belief in the Lordship of Jesus Christ moved forward together on the same line,” he explains.

Each of the top three Democratic presidential candidates is a church member. Hillary Clinton is a lifetime member of the United Methodist Church. Barak Obama is an adult convert to Christianity after having been raised in a secular home. His conversion took place at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, known for its commitment to liberal theology and liberal politics.

John Kerry is a Roman Catholic. He defended his deviation from Church teachings during the 2004 campaign; particularly his support for abortion.

Expect all of the presidential candidates to speak openly of faith. It’s a very good sign. It’s not a sign that America is becoming more religious but it is a sign that Christians are doing more to connect their faith to their votes.

It will be our task as voters to judge the sincerity of each candidate, Republican or Democrat, and remember that God is not a member of either party.

Certain activities are universally unpopular, but none more so than condemning someone for their sin. If you want to become the object of ridicule and rejection, just try telling someone they are committing a sin.

John the Baptist did it and they cut his head off. Jesus did it and they crucified him.

Never has the exposition of sin been more unpopular than it is in modern America . Many people do not believe in sin. Many more believe sin is real, but that it’s relegated to the truly evil such as Hitler and Saddam Hussein.

To make our sin seem less sinful, our society has given it new names.

What the Bible calls adultery, we call an affair. What the Bible calls fornication, we call free love or youthful curiosity. Drunkenness has become a disease, homosexuality is no longer perversion but simply an alternate lifestyle. Covetousness is simply the American way of life. Lying is reframing the issue.

The irony of this is that we Americans are very religious. A recent Baylor University study found that 90% of us identify with a congregation, denomination, or religious group. Less than 5% of Americans consider themselves outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

But nearly half of the babies born this year will be born out of wedlock. We no longer consider that sin. When was the last time you heard the word bastard? 20 million babies will be killed in the womb in our country this year. We call that choice. Pornography is destroying our families and our relationships and we call it entertainment. Gambling is addicting millions of our young people and we call it gaming.

Over 40% of Americans will attend a church service this month. We are religious but we are not holy.

The history of America is a history of revivals. When sin began to run rampant, God’s people prayed and cried out to Him for a sovereign move of the His Spirit. The result was repentance and change.

We’ve not seen a true revival in America in at least 50 years. Join me in praying for a true revival while I prepare myself to be unpopular.