Under our Constitution there can be no religious test for office. Anyone is eligible of any religion or of no religion. At the same time, voters need to look at the total person they are being asked to vote for.

We care deeply about their policies; we care about their character, their integrity, and what they promise to do when they get in office. It is impossible to separate people's religious faith from their worldview, their values, and their character.

So I would advise anyone to look very carefully at the religious belief a particular candidate espouses, how faithfully he has lived consistently with its teachings, what its teachings would require him to do, and whether those teachings are directed to the common good or whether they might be seriously flawed. For example: I would have great difficulty voting for a Muslim who shared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic vision. (I would, as I have written in one of my books, have similar misgivings about a Christian who saw it as his role to use his public office to help usher in the end times.)

While I would not want to disqualify someone because of their religious convictions, I would look hard at what their religious convictions teach about the sanctity of life, for example. I consider that one of the great overriding issues of our day, therefore the extent to which one’s religious conviction informs him or her about the sacredness of life would be a crucial issue. And I suspect this is what Senator John McCain means. He is not applying the religious test so much as he is looking at the teachings of those who share a sincere belief.

As a Bible-believing Christian, I take literally Jesus' promise of life hereafter; the core of the Christian faith is belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and in God's time, His return and our bodily resurrection as well.

In regards to the second question, no, I've never had any visions from dead people of any kind, and would be terrified if I did. Consulting mediums or spiritists is clearly condemned in Scripture (Leviticus 19:31; 20:6; 1 Samuel 28). In some traditions, believers ask the saints who have gone before us to intercede for us in prayer; but in no Christian tradition do we communicate with the dead.

In one sense, it is true that all major religions encourage love, compassion, and forgiveness. But scratching below the surface, there is quite a difference, especially when it comes to what motivates these acts of charity. For the sake of space, let’s consider just one of these: forgiveness.

For the Buddhist, forgiveness is prescribed because it prevents harmful emotions that disturb one’s “mind karma.” This is beneficial teaching, but it lacks moral force. Hindus are urged to forgive, since it is characteristic of one born of a divine state, as one teacher describes it. But Hinduism has no concept of grace; what you have done in this life will inevitably be done to you in the next, which perpetuates the evil cycle.

Both the Old Testament and the Qur'an teach forgiveness. But Judaism and Islam are religions of works, where one must earn God’s forgiveness and favor. Islam is especially problematic: Whether God’s will to forgive applies to everyone is questionable, and evil done against the unrighteous can become virtuous. God has a double standard in Islam when it comes to forgiveness that introduces a potentially deadly relativism into Islam’s ethics.

Only in Christianity does God sacrifice himself to pay the debts of humankind. This is the basis of the compulsion that uniquely directs the Christian toward moral behavior: If Christ lives in me, and Christ has died for my sins and the sins of others, how can I be unforgiving of someone who has hurt me? Forgiveness is not an option -- it is a mandate. And failure to forgive is disobedience to the One who died for us. Similarly, love and compassion are encouraged in other world religions, but motivations are very different from religion to religion.

E. O. Wilson’s proposal for “an alliance between science and religion forged in an atmosphere of mutual respect” is one of the healthiest suggestions I have heard, especially since it comes from the founder of the sociobiology school, which is rooted in materialism and rejection of the supernatural.

Could it be that Wilson, admittedly an extraordinary intellect, has had a second “conversion”? He has written that he left his own Baptist faith at the age of 15 and entered the “temple of science.” Perhaps he has come back.

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The celebration of Halloween dates back to a mixture of Gaelic pagan traditions marking the end of the harvest known as Samain.

At this time of year they believed that the veil between the present and the afterlife was extremely thin and that the dead could come back to life inflicting diseases on both people and crops alike. To placate the spirits, people wore masks. As the Roman Empire made inroads into Gaelic territory, many of their traditions also mixed in with these pagan rites.

In the seventh century, the Church moved a holiday honoring God and all His saints to November 1, hoping to replace pagan festivals that took place on that date and involved the spirits of the dead. This celebration is known as the feast of All Saints or All Hallows. On All Hallows, the church remembers the "great cloud of witnesses" described in Hebrews 12 who have gone before us and are now with the Lord. In 1484, November 1 was declared a holy day of obligation: The faithful were required to attend Mass, in addition to fasting the night before. That is, they fasted on the Eve of All Hallows, from which we get the word Halloween.

But for most Americans and retailers, the celebration has become another feast at the altar of consumerism—Halloween is currently the sixth most profitable “holiday” (after Christmas, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, and Father's Day) and our second most popular holiday (after Christmas) for decorating.

At best, it's an excuse to ask total strangers for candy. At worst, it's a celebration of the mindless paganism that our ancestors wisely turned their backs on. For most Christians though, it’s a missed opportunity for a much more meaningful celebration, remembering the saints that have gone before us.