Active Faith: How Christians Are Changing the Soul of American Politics.

THE phenomenon of the Religious Right is fascinating in part because of its volatility. Jerry Falwell made "Moral Majority" a term liberals used to scare naughty children, then suddenly he announced the movement's dissolution. Knowing commentators explained why "fundamentalists" could never succeed politically, only to have the Christian Coalition emerge full-blown from the failed political candidacy of Pat Robertson.

Ralph Reed, the Coalition's executive director, explains how it happened -- in a matter-of-fact, disarmingly candid way likely to leave some readers with the suspicion that it cannot have been that simple. In Reed's account the Moral Majority failed because it lacked political sophistication. But in the crucible of Robertson's quixotic bid for the 1988 Republican presidential nomination, the Religious Right learned much. The Coalition has now made itself a major player in national political battles.

Much of the story involves the nuts and bolts of politics, about which Reed is sketchy, "going local" being the chief tactic he points to. More importantly, the Coalition learned how to forge other national political coalitions and how to allay the suspicions of its critics.

In an entirely positive sense, Reed's account illustrates the Christian teaching that all men are sinners, so that even the best of motives are tinged with selfishness. Thus Reed courageously repudiates the white racism of which some conservative Christians were (some perhaps still are) guilty, going so far as to say that they should admit that on this question "the liberals were right." He repudiates several of the more scurrilous attacks on President Clinton, and he has acknowledged the anti-Catholicism that defeated Alfred E. Smith and was used against John F. Kennedy. But each of these confessions is also politically useful in broadening the Coalition's potential base of support and in polishing its image, an ambiguity that can only be called Niebuhrian.

Here the irony is that, while the Coalition has often been attacked as a gang of hate-mongering extremists, a case can be made that Reed's appreciation for practical politics has robbed the movement of some of its prophetic character. Coalition-building is of course an axiom in practical politics, but it is an extremely delicate process, in terms of who is co-opting whom and whose agenda will dominate. Reed is aware of the slipperiness of this terrain, but his account does not explain in detail how to keep one's feet.

A crisis of sorts occurred in 1994, when Mr. Reed seemed to say that the Coalition was now stressing "broadly based" issues like term limits and a balanced budget, which it had found to be in fact its members' primary concerns. Various pro-lifers accused Reed of compromising on the abortion issue. He indignantly denies it, but his explanation shows that abortion was deliberately placed on the back burner in the interest of "reaching out."

Similarly, he recounts his discussions with Newt Gingrich over the Contract with America, and Gingrich's decision to de-emphasize the "social issues." Reed endorses this as an astute political tactic, without noting that the Contract soon ran into disaster, at least partly because social conservatives did not see their agenda in it. Just conceivably, uncompromising principle may sometimes also be smart politics.

Understandably Reed is sensitive to the media, whose treatment of the Coalition would constitute a whole course in the abuse of journalistic ethics, if journalism schools ever acknowledged ideological bias. But Reed's repeated boasts about how he avoided media traps, confounding those who were trying to demonize him, usually involve his failing to take the strong and unambiguous stand that was expected of him.

Although there are credible rumors that unofficially the Coalition was supporting Robert Dole in the Republican primaries this year, Reed insists that it merely tried to keep all its options open, pointing out that Patrick Buchanan's protectionism was not acceptable to many Coalition members and that some found his views on Israel appalling.

Yet it remains to be seen whether Dole is appropriately grateful. For several weeks this summer he seemed inclined to give the Christian Right the back of his hand at every opportunity, and no one supposes that he either understands the social issues very well or is in any way passionate about them.

Reed remains fascinated by the Perot phenomenon, or, perhaps more accurately, envious of the Perot vote, which he hopes might become the Coalition's own. To that end he has, once again, stressed secular issues and ignored moral ones when necessary.

A political leader cannot be expected to be a theologian, and some of Reed's passing remarks about the spiritual basis of his activism suggest once again the primacy of the politician over the believer, the need to tailor the message in such a way as to defuse criticism.

Stung by hateful allegations that religious conservatives are hateful, Reed is at pains to insist that he does not characterize anyone as un-Christian and that his opponents are always motivated by good intentions. But those judgments are sometimes simply unsupportable. Some of what now passes for Christianity is a repudiation of the entire Christian tradition, and some people in public life promote causes that they know quite well will have radically destabilizing effects on society. It is a treacherous business to condemn others' sins without exalting one's own virtue, and it is especially treacherous when done in a political context. But not to do it is to blunt all moral sensibility.

In the end the verdict on the Christian Coalition will depend on the look of the country a decade from now. The jury is still out on whether Ralph Reed is a shrewd and principled leader who can reawaken the country's moral sense through skillful political activity, without at some point earning the media's Strange New Respect award.