In a column for TIME magazine early last month, Andrew Sullivan coined a new term, "Christianist," to describe ultra-conservative Christians who, in his opinion, claim that their version of Christianity is the one and only legitimate expression thereof ("My Problem with Christianism," May 7).

"The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many," Sullivan wrote. The "misrepresented" include evangelical Protestants who "believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of governmental power."

They also include "lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society."

"And there are those," Sullivan continued, "who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls." For them, faith is "interwoven" with doubt, which means "having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else."

Sullivan is convinced that "a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term 'people of faith' has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone.... The 'Christian' vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base."

In his TIME column, Sullivan insisted that the "worst response" to this situation would be to attempt to construct something comparable on the left. Many Christians who distance themselves from the Christian right are not on the left either. They are opposed to "any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones."

Sullivan suggests, by way of an alternative, that mainline Christians take back the word Christian and identify the religious right by a new name: Christianist. "Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism.

"The distinctions between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque."

Andrew Sullivan was careful in his column not to accuse Christianists of favoring violence. Indeed, not all Islamists are violent, he pointed out, and only a tiny few are terrorists. In his rendering, the Christianist simply believes that "religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike."

"I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor," he concluded. "The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back."

While Sullivan's proposal merits serious consideration, most efforts to coin a new word or expression are usually doomed to failure. The odds are heavily weighted against the widespread adoption of the word "Christianist" as a parallel to "Islamist." But that in no way invalidates Sullivan's basic concern, his criticism of the political usages of religion, or his resentment of the religious right's co-opting (with the media's implicit support) of the term Christian.

His column, however, may provide a logical segue to a comparable expression of concern, criticism, and some measure of resentment regarding the co-opting of the term "pro-life" by religious conservatives closely identified with the anti-abortion movement.

Applying Andrew Sullivan's proposal to the highly charged abortion issue, we might consider referring henceforth to the self-described pro-life contingent within the U.S. Christian community as "pro-birth" rather than as "pro-life."

I first heard this idea raised, in a far different form and context, by Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, a prolific author and lecturer, on the Easter Sunday installment of NBC's "Meet the Press."

Many, but surely not all, in the so-called pro-life movement are politically and socially conservative on issues affecting the quality of human life after birth: child care, health insurance, education, housing, safety standards in employment, a clean environment, immigration, non-discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation, the right to unionize, equitable tax policies, capital punishment, war and peace.

Indeed, Catholics identified with the self-described pro-life movement have been quick to criticize their own bishops for pressing a consistent-ethic-of-life approach over against one that focuses almost exclusively on abortion, with embryonic stem-cell research, homosexuality, and the continuation of life-sustaining measures (as in the Terri Schiavo case) running not far behind.

Clearly, such Catholics are pro-birth. Whether they are also pro-life in the comprehensive sense that the U.S. Catholic bishops are pro-life is another matter entirely.

Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.