By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, December 7, 2001; Page A41

Pat Robertson's decision to step down as president of the Christian Coalition and leave politics is good news for Christians, especially conservative Christians.

Conservative Christians have always been better than their publicly proclaimed leaders -- and, agree with them or not, they've always had a case to put to the country. It's not unreasonable to worry about family breakdown and its impact on individuals and society. Whatever you think about pornography, it's hardly an exotic idea that its effects can be harmful. And it shouldn't be difficult to understand how thoughtful people can come to different views on abortion, stem cell research or assisted suicide.

Above all, it is legitimate for conservative Christians -- and, for that matter, those of any faith -- to insist that religious voices, no less than secular voices, have a place in the democratic chorus.

As Stephen Carter put it in his book, "God's Name in Vain," there are "many forces in our culture that send messages that religion is . . . not a fit occupation for intelligent, public-spirited adults."

This view, says Carter, a professor at Yale Law School, "had a profoundly alienating effect on millions of Americans of deep religious faith who have grown understandably unhappy about political and legal cultures that seem to them repeatedly to mock what gives their lives greatest meaning."

Pat Robertson built his career giving voice to -- and, yes, exploiting -- those feelings of alienation. And because Robertson amplified the voices of conservative religious people, many in their ranks may still feel gratitude toward him.

But having Robertson as a chief public spokesman for religious conservatism ultimately undercut its cause, partly because Robertson seemed eager to identify God's will with the electoral success of one political party, and partly because of Robertson's own peculiar views.

It certainly worked for a while. Politicians in the Republican Party, where Robertson made his home, cowered before him but also used him. In the process, most of them -- John McCain was an exception -- resolutely avoided commenting on some of Robertson's wackier notions.

These, as outlined in his 1991 book, "The New World Order," included bizarre conspiracy theories involving Freemasons, the Rothchild family, international bankers and "the link between the occult and the world of high finance."

In a tape that Robertson distributed during his 1988 presidential campaign, he warned that children in our public schools were "being subjected to psychological manipulation which moves them away from their Judeo-Christian mindset and moves them into a humanistic mold and from the humanistic mold into the socialist worldview and ultimately into the Communist International."

Imagine: After nearly eight years of Ronald Reagan, our schools were using a four-step program to turn our kids into communists.

This is neither conservatism nor Christianity. It is garden-variety conspiracy theory associated with groups such as the old John Birch Society -- and I'm not sure I'm being entirely fair to the Birchers.

Of late, Robertson has been especially embarrassing to his own side. On television, he agreed with Jerry Falwell's, shall we say, out-of-the-mainstream reaction to Sept. 11: that God might "lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." Falwell, who later apologized, said that "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians . . . helped this happen."

And then there were the business dealings of Robertson's Freedom Gold Limited with the murderous Liberian leader Charles Taylor, reported extensively by Post columnist Colbert I. King. It's hard to discern any godliness in this transaction.

A generous view of Robertson's career might credit him with reminding everyone, especially liberals, that our multicultural mosaic includes religious traditionalists whose views deserve respectful attention. But it's hard to overlook the ways in which he identified faith with a worldly political agenda -- do you really think Jesus would insist on cutting the capital gains tax? -- and with a conspicuous lack of charity toward those whose views and lifestyles he rejected.

"Yes," wrote Stephen Carter, "religions sometimes can and must be politically active -- but they must be extraordinarily cautious about how they do it, because too much politics can destroy them." Robertson's departure from the political scene is a providential opportunity to call a cease-fire in the domestic religious war that most Americans never wanted to fight.