So, I've written a book. Perhaps you've heard something about it already. It isn't due for release until August but yesterday a political web site reviewed it and by the end of the day I was going to hell. Let me explain.

I've written a book on the faith of Barack Obama. It is a largely objective look at how Obama came to his unique brand of faith, what he believes, what his experience at Trinity United Church of Christ was and how his faith shapes his politics. I say in the forward that I intend to be kind and generous. And so I was. Though I'm a political conservative and deeply pro-life, I wanted to tell the story in a straightforward, informative fashion. I believe that Obama's story of faith captures the current religious trends in America just as George W. Bush's did five years ago when I wrote The Faith of George W. Bush. So, as a Christian, as a teacher, and as a patriot, I wanted to explore and explain the faith of this unusual man, Barack Obama, who just might be our next president.

In the ramp up for the release, I did an interview with Politico.com at the request of my publisher. Happy to help. The reporter and I discussed the polls that show "born again" voters supporting Democratic candidates in increasing numbers and how John McCain has mishandled his first attempts at connection to the Religious Right. I made it clear that while I find Obama a fascinating figure I cannot vote for him because I am pro-life and, again, a conservative. I am, however, a conservative with a working brain and I'm interested in ideas and how they shape culture, even ideas I can't embrace. This, I trust, is evidence that being a Christian and a conservative is not tantamount to having a brain bypass.

The reporter wrote his article and gave his conclusions. I did not agree with him but he was within his rights to say what he did. He said that my tone ranged from mild criticism to gushing, that the book defended Jeremiah Wright and that I had written a pro-Obama book that would draw evangelicals away from McCain.

Well, where to begin? First, I'm six feet, four inches tall and my weight is similar to that of your favorite defensive end in the NFL. I never gush. No, there is no gushing in my book on Obama.

Second, I have not defended Jeremiah Wright. I have explained him. I gave an overview of his life, explained black liberation theology (asking experts to check my work) and then I took the reader inside Trinity Church in Chicago where months before I spent a good deal of time trying to understand. Explaining is not defending.

Finally, no one could read my book and conclude that it is pro-Obama any more than they can conclude it is anti-Obama. I guess in our hyper-partisan world, objectivity is an evil, but that is what I've attempted. Any evangelical who reads this book is going to be informed about Obama's faith and then be allowed to draw his or her own conclusions. And, by the way, the book wasn't written for evangelicals. It was written for people who read.

Now, I've written enough books to know the drill. If you write books, particularly about politics and religion, you are going to be attacked. I wrote on George W. Bush and was hammered by the political left. I wrote on the Pope and had angry Protestants condemning me to a hell only Dante could imagine. I wrote on faith and soldiers and was skewered as a warmonger and this despite the fact that I said on C-SPAN five years ago that I did not think our invasion of Iraq fulfilled the conditions of the Christian just war theory. And so it goes.

Even so, I could not have been prepared for what happened after the Politico.com piece appeared. Now, remember, the book is not even out yet. Everyone is drawing conclusions from a single article on a single political blog. Yet my secretary has been fielding dozens of emails assuring that I am going to roast for all eternity. I'm deceived, serving Satan, in the employ of Obama, in the employ of McCain, in the employ of Oprah, and I'm apparently not going to be alive on Election Day.

I've also had conservative politicians calling in anger and liberal politicians calling in welcome.

So, I'm going to hell. Or, more likely, this is hell and I don't know it yet. Whatever the case, my point here isn't that I'm getting smacked. That goes with the job. My point is one that draws attention to a tragic potential of our times: the power to project a lie in the guise of truth at lightning speed.

You see, none of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who are commenting on my new book have read it. The thing isn’t even printed yet. They take as true what appears on a blog and this becomes their reality. And then I have to go to hell because I'm supporting Barack Obama who is planning to take America down the road to destruction. And perhaps he will, but I'm the guy who said I wanted to understand him but couldn't vote for him. How did I become the anti-Christ?

Two final thoughts. First, if I as a public Christian and former pastor can be treated like this by Christians, then I suppose people like Al Franken and Hillary Clinton must get even worse from church folks. So, why would they ever think of embracing the God of people filled with such hate? It is a miracle any of them do.

Second, there are certain lives you have to understand in any age in order to understand the times. Franklin Roosevelt may not be of your political persuasion but you can't understand America in the twentieth century without understanding his life. The same is true of Obama. Whether you are an evangelical pastor, an anarchist guitar player, a home school mom, a feminist doctor or a libertarian accountant, if you are going to understand America today you have to know a bit about Obama. When you decide that this is true, you are going to hope for a book that tells the facts with as little bias as a flawed human being can manage. Not everything is political. Not everything is perspective. Some things are just true but they are best learned from a decent storyteller.

Maybe when enough Americans conclude that this is so, I won't have to go to hell after all.