In an October 20 article, Washington Post staff writer Michael D. Shear wrote that Sen. Sam Brownback's (KS) departure from the Republican presidential race “was a disappointment to many” at the Family Research Council-organized “Values Voter Summit,” adding, “Brownback had spent much of his campaign talking about Christian values and stressing his stance against abortion.” But Shear did not explain what the term “Christian values” meant or how it related to Brownback's campaign. Indeed, other candidates -- Republican or Democrat -- might define “Christian values” differently than Brownback does.

In a December 14, 2005, article, Post staff writers Jonathan Weisman and Alan Cooperman noted that there are differences within the Christian faith as to what “Christian values” translate into in terms of political advocacy:

When hundreds of religious activists try to get arrested today to protest cutting programs for the poor, prominent conservatives such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell will not be among them.

That is a great relief to Republican leaders, who have dismissed the burgeoning protests as the work of liberals. But it raises the question: Why in recent years have conservative Christians asserted their influence on efforts to relieve Third World debt, AIDS in Africa, strife in Sudan and international sex trafficking -- but remained on the sidelines while liberal Christians protest domestic spending cuts?

Conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family say it is a matter of priorities, and their priorities are abortion, same-sex marriage and seating judges who will back their position against those practices.

“It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important,” said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. “But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that.”

Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian journal Sojourners and an organizer of today's protest, was not buying it. Such conservative religious leaders “have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees,” he said. “They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical.”

[...]

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the government's role should be to encourage charitable giving, perhaps through tax cuts.

“There is a [biblical] mandate to take care of the poor. There is no dispute of that fact,” he said. “But it does not say government should do it. That's a shifting of responsibility.”

Shear's use of the phrase “Christian values” recalls the Post and other media outlets' uncritical use of the term “values voters,” which Media Matters for America has extensively documented (here, here, here, and here).

From Shear's October 20 Washington Post article:

Brownback pulled the plug on his presidential bid in Topeka, citing difficulty raising money and saying, “My yellow brick road came just short of the White House this time.”

Brownback had captured only a few percentage points in most national polls and finished third in Iowa's straw poll this summer, despite campaigning across the state and pouring resources into winning Iowa's evangelical vote.

He officially withdrew after reporting recently that his campaign had $94,000 in cash. “We're out of money,” he told reporters.

Brownback was elected to the Senate in 1996 when Robert J. Dole resigned the seat to run for president. He won two full terms in 1998 and 2004. Political observers in Kansas expect that he will seek the governor's office in 2010.

His departure from the race was a disappointment to many here who said they voted for him in the straw poll. Brownback had spent much of his campaign talking about Christian values and stressing his stance against abortion.

“Personally, I always thought that Sam Brownback held the closest, totally consistent views,” said John Jakubczyk, a lawyer and past president of Arizona Right to Life.