BARACK OBAMA has been one of the more faith-friendly Democratic
politicians in recent years. He has publicly lamented Democrats'
reluctance to talk about religion. And he has equally publicly
courted Rick Warren as well as Democratic standbys like Jim
Wallis. He won 43% of voters who go to church once a week, 4%
more than John Kerry won four years earlier.  But will Mr Obama
prove to be as good for religion as religion has been for Mr
Obama? Bradford Wilcox argues, persuasively to my mind, that Mr
Obama's plans for expanding government could also lead to the
contraction of religion. He even has a "recent study" to prove
it:   Those secular liberals who might applaud this development
should visit Great Britain, where people pay through the nose to
support the welfare state only to have to endure the
consequences of social breakdown, in the forms of violence,
theft, public drunkenness and generally oafish behaviour,
everywhere they look. Here is the Duke of Devonshire, back in
the 19th century, contemplating th