I am SO tired of the phony fuss over saying “radical Islam.” It’s petty and silly.

Newflash: it’s a form of political correctness. Donald Trump brags about not being politically correct, and then insists that everyone say the words “radical Islam.” He’s blind to the hypocrisy.

So was every candidate during the Republican primary. Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and others said we’ll never defeat ISIS as long as the President won’t “name the enemy.” Really? Suppose President Obama DID use the term “radical Islam.” Would that make ISIS shrivel up and go away? What difference would it make?

As far as I can tell, the term was invented deep in the bowels of FoxNews. Producers decided, “Let’s insist that President Obama say ‘radical Islam,’ and if he doesn’t, we’ll puff out our chests and act very very outraged.” Of course, it’s been going on for years. Every conservative pundit promotes the term.

President Obama has explained that he doesn’t want to give ISIS the legitimacy of representing Islam–which is what they want. Instead, he calls them terrorists, thugs, killers, violent extremists, and such. And he kills a whole lot of them.

It’s like saying the KKK is “radical Christianity.” To me, the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has nothing to do with Christianity. The vast majority of the world’s Muslims feel the same way about identifying ISIS as part of Islam. ISIS, after all, has been slaughtering Sunni Muslims, who make up 90% of the world’s Muslims.

President Bush said, “Americans understand we fight not a religion. Ours is not a campaign against the Muslim faith. Ours is a campaign against evil.”

That’s almost identical to President Obama’s approach. “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”

Another time: “The terrorists do not speak for over a billion Muslims who reject their hateful ideology.”

And another time: “They try to portray themselves as religious leaders — holy warriors in defense of Islam. That’s why ISIL presumes to declare itself the ‘Islamic State.’ And they propagate the notion that America — and the West, generally — is at war with Islam.” Donald Trump and other Republicans also want to propagate that notion. Don’t go along with it.

I think of the numerous Republican statesmen I admired in my earlier years: Howard Baker, Mark Hatfield, John Danforth, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, George HW Bush, Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, James Baker, Henry Kissinger, Jeane Kirkpatrick, George Romney, James Schlessinger, Elizabeth Dole, William Cohen, Brent Scowcroft.

Remember those folks? Quite a list, huh? Those were persons with class and dignity. Some were people of faith, some not.

I grew up Republican, and proudly wore that label. I even canvassed for Dan Quayle when he first ran for Congress in 1976. But I stopped calling myself a Republican about 15 years ago, when I saw the party veering in directions which, as a Christian, I couldn’t endorse (the embrace of torture was the final straw). And now the Republican Party–the “Christian” party according to so many people–has chosen a man whose character is antithetical to every Christlike characteristic. Is there anything Trump values that Jesus would value?

It’s a different Republican Party. Yet a great many Christians I know (since I’ve spent my life among conservative evangelicals) remain committed to Republican politics, refusing to accept that the party they grew up with no longer exists.

I don’t write this as an endorsement of any Democratic candidate. By no means. But I do wish people of faith would disentangle themselves from allegiance to political parties. None of them represent Christianity. We need to be a separate, called-apart people within a secular society. We are explicitly told to not conform to the patterns of this world, and political parties are one such pattern, in no way created by God.