The strikingly new note in the Evangelical Manifesto is that it intends to be conciliatory. In affirming that they totally identify with their faith, the writers quickly declare that their purpose is "not to attack or exclude." This seems to reverse the very impulse that brought the religious right to power politically. By erasing the line between faith and the voting booth, evangelicals absolutely excluded anyone who believes in a secular Constitution and its separation of church and state. They also vehemently attacked candidates who didn't share their viewpoint.

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Half-truths are the bread and butter of politics. This must be so where compromise is the only way to move ahead and warring constituencies have to be placated. But after Watergate personal dishonesty became a central issue, and the simmering contempt that Americans have casually felt toward "lying politicians" was ignited into something far more contentious. Bill Clinton was impeached for a lie that most husbands would at least attempt if caught cheating. This wasn't an indication that America sets a high standard of personal integrity but exactly the opposite: politics has become an arena for vitriol and personal attack. Everybody's untrustworthy if your opponent is cynical enough to keep hurling false accusations (hence the 20% of the public who believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim.)

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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?

I can't help but wonder if the surfacing of Jeremiah Wright -- and his
recent resurfacing on PBS and other venues -- didn't send a shiver of fear
through campaign central in the Obama camp. In himself Sen. Obama
exemplifies the success of racial integration, having lived in both worlds
and understanding each with unaffected sympathy. Rev. Wright is not such a
person. His manner was gentler when talking to Bill Moyers -- you wouldn't
recognize the firebrand from those YouTube video clips -- and he attempted
to sound reasonable without backing down, however, from anything he has said
in the past.

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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?

The Pope was on a mission to do more than inspire. He came to stop the steady sinking of a leaky boat. Faced with declining membership and widespread disgruntlement, the Catholic Church in America shows every sign of emptying out its parish churches and cathedrals. They are already empty, more or less, in Europe. Therefore the phrase "private matter" means, "Don't go off on your own." And faith losing its soul is code for a familiar theme to lay Catholics: without the Mother Church you are lost.

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The Question: What can Pope Benedict XVI say and do to repair the growing rifts between the Vatican, the clergy and the laity in America?

Giving the Pope advice is a contradictory task, because the Church's position is that he is infallible to begin with. To an outsider, infallibility seems like an impossible burden for someone who, the day before his election to the Papacy, was as fallible as any other mortal. But the Church's whole existence is based on a special relationship to God. The Pope sits on a throne that belongs to Jesus when he returns, and this symbolizes a duty to care for the Kingdom of God here on earth. The current crises inside Catholicism are only the latest difficulties that began after Christ disappeared from view. In every age balancing the two worlds of God and man has been a deep mystery.

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The Question: Pope Benedict's recent baptism of a well-known Italian Muslim has prompted criticism in much of the Islamic world. Has Benedict done enough to build bridges to Islam?

The Vatican scored an undoubted public relations coup by converting a Muslim who was also a prominent newspaper editor in Italy. This comes as an after note to the quieter conversion of Tony Blair, who wanted to join his wife's faith. But once the reporters leave, the fact remains that Italy and England, like the rest of Western Europe, have very low Church attendance, generally between 10% and 18%. Church-going has been on the decline for decades and is basically limited, for most citizens, to weddings, funerals, and holidays.

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The Question: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago. What are your memories of that day? What impact did it have on you? How is King relevant to you and to us today?

To turn into a sainted memory is a poor memorial for a man of action. I was in medical school in India in 1968 and therefore saw the murder of Martin Luther King as a blurry image from a faraway land. Moving to America was still three years off. But unlike other foreigners who self-righteously decried the level of guns and violence in the U.S., Indians were keenly aware of what an assassination can do. It can end an era of idealism, which is what happened when Gandhi was killed in 1948 by a Hindu extremist while taking his evening stroll. In both cases the ideal that died was the same: Satyagraha, or active non-violent resistance. Dr. King was consciously a descendant of Gandhi as well as of Thoreau and his philosophy of civil disobedience.

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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?

John McCain doesn't have to put the shoe on the other foot now that he has a controversial preacher to contend with, just as Barack Obama did a few weeks ago. Neither candidate should be held responsible for second-hand opinions, and since McCain didn't pour kerosene on Obama's firestorm, I doubt that the reverse will happen. For the first time in twenty years, neither candidate is asking God to vote for him. Our secular democracy has a good chance of backing off the ledge that right-wing fundamentalists and those who pander to them pushed us toward. In a perfect world, God wouldn't vote at all.

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

Before the question can be answered, the air needs clearing. Sexism and racism are rooted in unevolved consciousness, and both will be solved when consciousness rises. They aren't going to be solved from the pulpit, however. Catholicism will retain its traditional sexism, both spoken and implicit. Southern Baptists will remain covertly or overtly bigoted in racial matters. Protestantism in general will likely keep a genteel distance away from social action. I can't see choosing between racism and sexism to begin with -- both are throwbacks to an outworn attitude that promoted white males to special privilege in God's creation. Religion was one of the chief bulwarks of this world view, so turning to it for a remedy seems ironic. I'd put much more trust in the growing spiritual movement outside the church.

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The Resurrection is a second-hand miracle, and for that reason a bit disappointing. Spirituality is about first-hand experience, while organized religion is forced to begin with the second-hand. How strange that the literal fact of the Resurrection remains controversial. This country was founded in the Age of Enlightenment, when a new, more rational religion -- the kind typified by Thomas Jefferson -- was supposed to replace archaic superstition and church dogma. Spiritually, throwing out the bishops was as American as throwing out the King politically. The revolution took hold, and now as children of the Enlightenment, our society is overwhelmingly secular and scientific. But this didn't heal an aching wound, the longing for redemption that the Resurrection symbolizes. For the Resurrection to be real, it must be the key to salvation.

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The Question: How should Barack Obama have responded to inflammatory remarks made by his former pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright? Are you responsible for what your spiritual leader says from the pulpit?

In the aftermath of Obama's major speech on race, one expects the affair of Rev. Wright to fade away. But one major theme of the speech was that moving beyond the racial divide can't be accomplished in a single election. It was a stretch to hold Obama culpable for a preacher's tiresome anti-white rants. Under normal circumstances nobody would call him on it, any more than Nixon would have been held responsible for Billy Graham's social views. But strategists in the Clinton camp and troublemakers on talk radio never thought of this as a moral issue. Rather, it was a political trap. They were playing on widespread doubt that Obama's integrity and idealism are too good to be true. Not so much for him as for us. He challenges us to follow our better angels, and we wind up worrying about our hidden demons.

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

In the barely concealed glee that accompanied Gov. Spitzer's downfall, there's been a consistent theme: hypocrites deserve what they get. There was plenty of fuel for such a judgment, since Spitzer signed into law the nation's toughest penalties against men who solicit prostitutes. He was a zealous moral policeman, now ensnared in his own traps. But we shouldn't miss the prime issue here, which can be stated as a question: How much good have the moral police ever done? A predictable number of hellfire preachers have turned out to be Elmer Gantry, and some sheep-faced politicians who made a show of public piety pursued private sexual shenanigans. The spectacle is sad, laughable, unstoppable, and as old as the id.

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The Question: E-mail: Blessing or Curse?

It would be glib to say that every blessing brings a hidden curse and every curse a hidden blessing. But I saw that since the beginning of the Iraq war, cell phones in that country skyrocketed from 850,000 to 1.6 million in a single year's time, 2004 to 2005. The real battle for the Middle East could be between the imams and the iPod. the hope being that exposure to technology will cause a new generation of moderate, progressive Muslims to evolve beyond ancient tribalism into expanded globalism. If that were to happen, e-mails would be a blessing indeed.

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Actually, it seems to be forgotten that Jesus once ran for President, and the result was a fiasco. Since the first plank of his platform was "Love your enemies," he had no choice but to seek the nomination of both parties at the same time, promising to merge the two into one. Republicans and Democrats were brought up short by the idea. Jesus called it a win-win situation for them, given the enormous savings in campaign costs. Pollsters were bothered by Jesus's claim that he knew how the election would turn out in advance. It seems that his Father, who has a finger in everything, had tipped him off.

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