Jerusalem — Many of the most contentious controversies of the hour are fueled by Christians not behaving like Christians, by people not being who they say they are. It’s an issue of identity and of integrity.

Which is why I left the United States for a time this February. I walked away from the run-up to Super Tuesday, from the fight against the White House’s attack on conscience rights, and I flew to the land known as the “Terra Sancta” for a good old-fashioned Christian pilgrimage.

A change of scenery; a refresher course; a close encounter of a historic and deeply religious kind; a transformation — these are just some of the goals of a journey to what has been referred to as the “Fifth Gospel,” the one where the stones themselves tell the story of a man Who lived, died, and had an impact on this earth like no other.

One of the many memorable moments of this week involved the sound of a prolonged Muslim call to prayer, which nearly drowned out our priest celebrating Mass in Bethany. It’s actually a lovely sound — even as it competes with your prayers — and it comes five times a day, reminding us that communication with God, and a sincere attempt to discern the role He intends for us as peacemakers throughout the day, wouldn’t be a bad idea for any of us.

The morning of a lifetime — worth every dollar and every mile traveled — was spent standing before the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem and kneeling at the spot where He is believed to have been born in Bethlehem. What is the overwhelming message for a Christian pilgrim? If this Christianity stuff is true, we must do something different or we are frauds. Jesus lived, and if we believe that He is the savior of the world, offering us a celestial Jerusalem, then what the heck are we doing killing time? We waste time, sometimes on transitory controversies, sometimes complaining about others’ faults. Rarely do we try to be more like Him.

But who should our earthly models be? Christianity is a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In my own church, we have our fair share of divisions among those who identify as Catholics in one way or another. Barack Obama has been known to be one of the sources of those divisions, and we prayed for him, too, as we prayed for ourselves in Jerusalem: “With his gifts, imagine the good he could do.” That is not a partisan prayer, but the prayer of one who loves life and can’t bear the sight of a gifted man feeding and expanding the culture of death in America — not only a culture of legally permitted abortion, but one that errs on the side of death under the cover of all kinds of euphemisms that skirt the truth and cover up pain. Barack Obama is in need of just as many prayers and friends — rather than cheering sections, which have a tendency to turn into firing squads — as anyone.

In Mary of Nazareth and in Christ Himself, we see the power of “yes,” the power of embracing human life, purpose, and vocation — even when the road that entails may not be the road we’d map out for ourselves. If we’re believers, we’re not following any mere man. While we have some lovely models — saintly models — our fallen hopes are done a disservice if we treat our secular leaders as if they were ever more than just fallen men, replete with the same temptations and failings as all of us.

“The Word was made flesh,” John tells us in his Gospel. That has been used and misused, as religion can be. Rather than being employed as an excuse to justify our decisions or our hardened opinions, Christ should be a constant challenge to us, calling us to be honest about just what it is that we believe and what we know we ought to do.

That requires us to exercise conscience — and that, in turn, requires that we enjoy the freedom to do so.

In his 2009 visit to this land that I’ve been walking, Pope Benedict XVI said: “The just ordering of social relationships presupposes and requires a respect of the freedom and dignity of every human being, whom Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike believe to be created by a loving God and destined for eternal life. When the religious dimension of the human person is denied or marginalized, the very foundation for a proper understanding of inalienable human rights is placed in jeopardy.”

While that is, of course, very much a political matter, it ought not be a partisan one — thank God for the Democrats who press their party on abortion! And foremost it must be a personal one. It’s the golden rule and the reason any of this land is special: a God Who so loved the world that He gave Himself to it.

You’re free, of course, not to believe that — many don’t. But if you do believe it, or if you think you do, then ask yourself: What are you doing to act on that belief?

The Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the life, death, and resurrection of Christ bring with them messages of freedom, of grace, and of liberation from what burdens our hearts. Rather than something reserved for the weekend, religion should be celebrated and embraced at the core of our daily lives. When our Founders established our nation, they understood that religious faith was a good. Now imagine if we truly lived it.

This Lent, you don’t have to be a Christian to try to figure out what is motivating you when you get up in the morning. What is your work for? What is your life for? What are you for?

It’s not Santorum vs. Romney or Obama. Such contests are important, but they are a means, not an end. Which is why there isn’t a better place in the world I could have been as the results of the Michigan primary were being announced.

These things we labor at daily on earth — why are we doing them? Whom and what are we doing them for? What happens when it’s all over? What will we be left with then? Avoiding questions like these is only to avoid fully living.

This land that tells the story of the greatest peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding, knows no earthly peace — as you’re reminded when you wait on line at the Jerusalem checkpoint for entry into Israel, when you stand at the wall dividing Jerusalem from Bethlehem, or visit the Palestinian police office in the Church of the Nativity. These things vividly remind us of our challenges. The key is to live in this world and accept its daily requirements, but to rise above it and make more of it. The key is to know the permanent things and run towards them with a love for life and for mankind. The key is, as in Psalms 85:8, to “hear what the Lord God has to say, a voice that speaks of peace, peace for His people and His friends, and those who turn to Him in their hearts.” How might that be, for a change?

— Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. This column is available exclusively through United Media.