All politicians tell people what they want to hear, rather than what they need to hear. Too many care about themselves and perpetuating their political careers more than promoting the general welfare. If that is their goal, a certain diagnosis of their character has already been made.
The key is discovering whether a presidential candidate has a core set of principles from which he (or she) will not deviate except under the most extreme of circumstances. Moral character is important, though people sometimes define such things according to their own moral standards.

The Question: Jeremiah Wright's sermons continue to be an issue in the presidential campaign. Why? What do you think of his preaching style? What do you wish you understood better about it?

The media tend to focus mainly on the incendiary and the divisive because it makes a better story. There are thousands of African American churches, from storefronts, to traditional looking buildings in which faithful pastors preach the age-old Gospel of Christ without the putrid anointing oil of politics. The media ignore them, leaving the impression -- especially among whites who don't visit black churches -- that African American churches are mostly hotbeds of black liberation theology and anti-American screeds. The black churches I have attended and the black pastors I know are the antithesis of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but they are never interviewed on TV which prefers rhetorical bomb throwers.

The

Question: In his speech to U.S. bishops last week, Pope Benedict XVI said: "Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted . . . To the extent that religion becomes a purely private affair, it loses its very soul." Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Since becoming a serious follower of Jesus of Nazareth thirty-five years ago, I have been puzzled by those who claim “religion” should be private. In some sense, it is, as when Jesus instructed those who follow Him to go into their closets and pray rather than praying publicly for show as the Pharisees did. But the suggestion that faith should never escape the boundaries of one’s own heart and mind is a kind of selfishness, an unwillingness to share the greatest news ever proclaimed. And that is that Christ died for our sins and by confessing our sins and receiving the crucified Christ as Savior and Lord, people can find a reason and power for living this life and be assured of a home in Heaven after it ends. Who wouldn’t want to share that incredible news with others in need of its hopeful message?

The Apostles didn’t believe in keeping their faith private. On the contrary, they shouted it from the housetops and saw thousands converted for their efforts. In our day, where would the civil rights movement be without the public voice of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.; or the pro-life movement without the voices of public men and women, exercising their faith?

At its best, faith drives people and movements that are good for humanity. At its worst, it can become a tool of a political party or candidate and divert attention from the Kingdom that will not end in favor of a temporal kingdom that is passing away.

The Question: John McCain's spiritual guide, televangelist Rod Parsley, calls Islam a "false religion" that should be "destroyed." Should McCain renounce Parsley? Will Islam be an issue in this year's U.S. presidential election?

Let me see if I have this straight. Numerous Islamic leaders advocate killing Jews (who they blame for everything from AIDS to 9/11) and Christians (who they call "cross worshippers" and "infidels"). They state their intention to wipe out those faiths. They claim they have a mandate from Allah to do this. And we're worried when one American preacher says Islam must be wiped out? The American preacher isn't recruiting homicide bombers. No one is going to "wipe out" any of the world's three great religions. It's been tried before. The Romans tried to eradicate Christianity and the Nazis attempted to eliminate Jews. These are things of the Spirit, not politics. As Martin Luther wrote: "The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still. His Kingdom is forever."

If McCain were a member of Rod Parsley's church, that might be another matter as it was for Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But anyone can endorse (or oppose) anyone else. As for whether Islam will be an issue in the presidential race, it seems to be for Muslims as they recruit candidates for office and mobilize to vote probably as a block and mostly for the Democratic nominee, so why shouldn't it be an issue for the rest of us who are not Muslim?

The Question: Which "ism" is more entrenched in America, sexism or racism? Which should religion address?

Both sexism -- treating women as subhuman, or at least of lesser value than men -- and racism -- the view that one race is superior to all others -- are specifically condemned in Scripture. Both are considered sins and both are equally rejected in Scripture.

God made all human beings in His image, which is a spiritual, not a physical image. Paul, the Apostle, makes this crystal clear when he writes to believers in Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

One can't improve on that.

The answer is found in Paul's First Letter to the Corinthian Church, Chapter 15, beginning in vs.12:

"But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." (NIV)

There is not much wiggle room in such a statement. If Jesus was not literally and bodily raised from the dead - as He said He would be and demonstrated in front of witnesses who just days before had abandoned Him in fear of the mob that called for His crucifixion -- then all humanity is without hope.

The Question: What does the Eliot Spitzer scandal say about our public and private morality? Should he have resigned?

This was a clear case where private morality and public lawbreaking intertwined. Spitzer is alleged to have broken laws he swore to uphold. His hypocrisy was further multiplied by the fact that he had gone after prostitution rings as state Attorney General apparently at the same time he was using one. And his stupidity was revealed when he used telephones to "book" the hookers and his calls were tapped by the authorities, something he had done as Attorney General of New York. Unless he had a secret political death wish, his behavior is hard to explain.

As I said in a column I wrote, he should have reached out for the Gideon Bible in the hotel room drawer instead of reaching out for prostitutes. In that Book he would have found warnings of what happens when people use prostitutes. He would have also encountered this verse: "Be sure your sin will find you out." (Numbers 32:23)

The Question: E-mail: Blessing or Curse?

Anything that saves time and postage, which is going up again, is a blessing. The curse, of course, is that you are never out of touch.

He wouldn't be running. His Kingdom is not of this world. He comes down to lift us up, not to stay and be brought down to our level!

What the Pew Survey says to me is that people are continuing to search for something beyond materialism and politics that gives their life meaning. When they don't find it in one place, they move to another. It is interesting that the evangelical churches are now the largest subgroup within Protestantism. That's because they preach and teach with an assurance often lacking in churches and denominations that seek to make peace with the world more than they do peace with God.

Anyone who is not aware of the subtle strategy of the religionists who hate and wish to destroy the Western way of life suffers from the deadly denial virus and is living in a Harry Potter fantasy world. Accommodation with those who would deny freedom of conscience, freedom of worship and equality to women only encourages them to turn up the heat and convinces them they are winning.

Debra Burlingame, the sister of American Airlines pilot Charles Burlingame, who was murdered by believers in Sharia law when they crashed his plane into the Pentagon on 9/11, wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "Radical Islamists are a sophisticated and determined enemy who understand that violence alone will not achieve their goals. Islamist front groups, representing themselves as rights organizations, are attempting to get a foothold here as they already have in parts of Western Europe by deftly exploiting ethnic and racial politics, agitating under the banner of civil liberties even as they are clamoring for the imposition of special Sharia law privileges in the public domain..."

There is not a country where Sharia law is the law that accommodates any other law or belief. By allowing Sharia law co-equal status with British common law, the British government has sealed its doom with more certainty than Neville Chamberlain did at Munich seven decades ago. Compromise with evil only encourages more evil. Resistance and combating evil is the only path to victory over it.

I am not an Islamic scholar, but I would take a page from the New Testament which says "by your fruits you shall know them." If freedom of speech is tolerated, even encouraged, in the Islamic world, we need to see more demonstrations of it.

We have too many "leaders" and not enough followers of the only Leader (Jesus of Nazareth) who knows where he is going. To the extent that earthly "leaders" are following Him, they are good company, but they must not divert our attention from the one who knows and is "The Way, The Truth and The Life."

As I understand it, Huckabee was responding to a question about abortion and same-sex marriage and noting how the courts have sometimes acted outside what the Constitution says to read their own prejudices into our founding document. In that context, what I heard him saying was not that we had to conform the Constitution to the Bible, but rather conform the courts to the Constitution. There's a big difference. If anyone were to suggest that the Bible should be the basis of the government of the United States he would be wrong to do so and violate the same Constitution he purports to uphold.

There is no "gradation" of sin in Scripture. The notion of "seven deadly sins" is not a product of biblical theology, but something added by elements of the early church and promoted by the Roman Catholic church which divided sin into the categories "venial" and "mortal." Paul writes "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and "there is no one righteous, no not one." The only "deadly" sin is the rejection of Jesus the Christ as Savior and His payment for our sin.

I think most people want competence first and ideology second. That would include religious belief. Knowing where -- or if -- someone attends religious services and his/her view of God is interesting, but it tells me nothing about how the candidate, if elected, will run the country. Too often in the past, presidential candidates on both sides have used religious language and practices as a tool for helping attract a certain demographic. But sometimes those presidents have been a disappointment, because the expectations that come from religious believers are not uniform.

Better, then, not to put one's faith up-front, but to first establish one's positions and vision in the public mind. Then, if a candidate wishes to talk about religious faith, that's fine. After all, we are electing a president of a country that is part of a fallen world. We are not members of a search committee looking for a new pastor. They are two different "kingdoms."

Of course Christmas and Christmas have been important to the United States, if for no other reason than that it transforms the bottom lines of many businesses from red to black. For the most part (this election cycle being the exception because of the front-loading of the primaries and Iowa caucuses) it mostly silences the politicians, which is the perfect gift for most of us! But it also gives Congress a way to identify with a feel-good sentiment expressed in such classic films as "It's A Wonderful Life," "The Bishop's Wife," and "White Christmas."

The key to such resolutions is that they not be too specific. Congress wouldn't want to go on record as affirming the greatest contribution ever made: God's gift to Man -- salvation in and through Jesus Christ. It is instructive that language about Jesus was deleted from the resolution before it passed, making the Christmas and Christian resolution no more significant than National Pickle Week to some members of Congress.

I have no expectation that "the world" will properly observe the birth of Christ. Why should it when He was rejected when He walked among us? Requiring governments to adhere to this unique expression of who God is would require a "conversion" by the consumer-driven culture. That culture has exploited Jesus to make money rather than to obey His teachings, accept the greatest gift ever offered to humankind in forgiveness of sins and walk a new path that does not lead to prosperity in this life, but to true riches and eternal life.

Britain is far ahead of America in its abandonment of the things of God, so it should come as no surprise that some wish to throw off the remnants of what Britain and much of Europe once embraced as Truth. For those nations that have largely abandoned Christ and His message to continue to celebrate Christmas as if they still believed it would be the height of hypocrisy. Let those who still "keep Christmas" in their hearts observe it well and not look to governments to ratify what they have abandoned.

People with faith in God who are "called according to His purpose" have a dual interest in fighting poverty and disease. There is the temporal benefit of doing good to a fellow human being and the delight in seeing that life fulfill its potential. And there is the even greater motivation of acting as God's agent in demonstrating His love for the physical body in order that the person on the receiving end of that love might open his or heart to the eternal message of salvation in and through Jesus Christ. It is He who has the ultimate answer to the poverty of the soul and the "disease" called sin.

If one begins with the premise that Man is perfectible, one will always be frustrated about the deplorable condition of much of the world (in Romans 8, Paul writes about how God has built "futility" into the world "in hope" that the world will turn to Him). We have conflict with each other, because too many of us are in conflict with God: not accepting His existence; not obeying His commands; rejecting His salvation.

In the midst of conflict and chaos, we can be thankful that we live in America which still guarantees the freedom to worship, or not, according to one's own conscience and that until recently we have largely been protected from the consequences of religious and ethnic tensions that grip much of the world. That has changed since 9/11, but America remains the last best hope on Earth. If it didn't, so many would not want to come here -- legally and illegally!

Thanks must have an object and Thanksgiving has traditionally been understood in the context of thanking God for His many blessings. That never changes, no matter our political surroundings or personal circumstances.