Boston University religion scholar Stephen Prothero has been one of the mainstream media's "go to" religion scholars - all the more notable, his CNN Belief Blog column My Take: Billy Graham and Ralph Reed are putting politics before God, in which Prothero, evincing astonishment at Billy Graham recent, controversial endorsement of Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy, walks up to the tacit admission that his assessment of the religious right has been incorrect:

I used to believe that the purpose of the religious right was to infuse American politics with Christian politicians and Christian politics. I no longer believe that. The purpose of the religious right is to use the Christian God for political purposes. Why any Christian, conservative or liberal, can say "Amen" to that is beyond me.

I am perfectly happy to see Reed stump for Romney in Ohio and Graham plump for Romney in an ad in The Wall Street Journal. Just don't tell me they are doing so as Christians. They are doing so as shills for the GOP.

Of course, at the end there Prothero does fall into the all-too frequent trap of believing that the GOP and the religious right are two distinct groups.

But even there, his expression of the misconception is better than usual too - whereas, in the What's the Matter With Kansas model the foot soldiers of the religious right are merely dupes of the supposedly secular GOP (and they lack captains, it would seem), in Prothero's construction they at least get a more active role, as "shills".