To the best of my knowledge not one of my former students has ever run for president of the United States. But if, during the course of routine office hours, an undergraduate were to express a desire to do so, I would offer the following (unsolicited) advice: get yourself a good spiritual mentor.

Spiritual mentors (to be distinguished from mere “spiritual advisers,” about whom more anon) provide politicians with the same basic package of services they offer all congregants (e.g., life cycle ceremonies, doctrinal consultation, support in times of crisis). But beyond pastoral care, spiritual mentors perform a vital function for public figures: guaranteeing to a skeptical electorate and media that their mentees are truly religious.

Faith is such an interior thing, sequestered under the carapace of a politician’s guile. Who knows if a candidate’s external professions of faith are genuine? That’s where spiritual mentors come in. They are witnesses to the authenticity of their charge’s beliefs. They vouch for the sincerity of a politician’s stated religious convictions. And best of all, they are willing to do so in the presence of journalists.

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There is a memorable scene in the short story “Bloodshed” by the spectacular Jewish-American novelist Cynthia Ozick. A Hasidic Rebbe endowed with the ability to read other people’s minds confronts a visiting nonbeliever seated in his synagogue. After having somehow articulated the innermost thoughts of this troubled voyeur, the Rebbe exclaims: “Despair must be earned.” The following dialogue ensues:

“I’m not in despair” Bleilip objected.
“To be an atheist is to be in despair.”
"I’m not an atheist, I’m a secularist,” but even Bleilip did not know what he
meant by this.

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This past week a minor scrum broke out concerning the religious bona fides of newly announced presidential candidate, Fred Thompson. Some of the questions raised included: Is he still a member in good standing of the Church of Christ where he was baptized more than a half century ago? What does his wife’s membership in the liberal, mainline United Church of Christ denomination (which is, I might add, Sen. Barack Obama’s spiritual home) suggest about the Thompson clan's commitment to the Conservative Christian worldview? And what’s he been doing attending (sporadically) that Presbyterian church in Virginia?

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“We still get our basic rights from God, not government”—this is a phrase that Fred Thompson has been pronouncing a lot lately. Upon hearing this mantra my first impulse was to pop it into a large file labeled “Unfortunate and Not Entirely Logical Things Politicians Say When Playing the Faith and Values Game.” (Perhaps it should rest next to Joseph Lieberman’s ill-advised 2000 proclamation that “Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.”)

Upon deeper reflection, however, it struck me that the remark was, at the very least, quite strategically astute. In less than a dozen words Thompson’s credo manages to assure two key Republican constituencies that he is with them. Conservative Christians, who are not as of yet convinced that he is with them, are clearly his primary target.

On the backstroke, the former senator’s credo is also a gesture to the libertarian component of the GOP. By setting the state against God (an uneven competition if there ever was one) Thompson manages to cut government down to size, so to speak. Upon hearing this, Republicans who value personal freedom and minimal state intervention will be reminded that the former senator from Tennessee has very solid libertarian credentials.

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It's a great moment for atheist and agnostic Americans. Nonbelief is selling books. Nonbelief is giving the Faith and Values punditry a Fresh New Angle. Nonbelief is providing a symbolic and therapeutic refuge for Red-Staters escaping from abusive Fundamentalist homes. Nonbelief is generating buzz. Nonbelief is hot!

Yet all of this obscures a point of no small relevance: Nonbelief is in a state of complete political disrepair. It lacks everything from effective and recognizable leadership to grass roots infrastructure. In terms of size (i.e., votes) it is dwarfed by the ranks of believing secularists (not to mention believing non-secularists).

The crucial distinction between believing and nonbelieving secularists (see below) is lost on many and it is not unusual to find even opinion makers equating secularism with nonbelief. The recent success of the so-called "New Atheist" writers has done much to foster the perception that a "secularist" is not only a nonbeliever, but a person who profoundly loathes religion. All religion.

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As a means of improving the political fortunes of American Nonbelief , permit me to make a helpful suggestion: I propose that the godless of our great nation nominate their own candidate for a 2008 presidential run.

Will the candidate who represents the Party of Nonbelief win? Of course not. In all likelihood, he or she probably won’t even make the ballot in most places (Democrats--who would rather be Tasered than Nadered in a battleground state--will wage war to keep an atheist presidential contender off the slate in, let’s say, Ohio or Pennsylvania).

No, no, no. This is not about winning or losing. This is about figuring out who nonbelievers are. This is about learning where they are. This is about building a grass-roots political infrastructure. This is about training cadres of young operatives in the mixed-martial arts combat that is an American presidential campaign. And most of all, this is about gaining acquaintance with deep-pocketed non-theists who will be bankrolling day-to-day operations for years to come.

Think of it this way: this might very well be the first campaign in history where the kids holding the clipboards and collecting names and addresses will be more important than the candidate delivering the stump speech. Nonbelievers need to discover themselves. If I know my co-irreligionists well enough, then these are some of the discoveries that they are poised to make:

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I must assume that Senator John McCain’s recent declaration, “I’m not Episcopalian, I’m Baptist,” was carefully scripted. After all, a presidential candidate who casually mentions that his religious affiliation is different from what nearly everyone in the country believed it to be is inviting scrutiny. Journalists, one would surmise, might want to look into that.

As far as Faith and Values gamesmanship goes, the McCain people played it well. To begin with, his claim is plausible. Had he said something to the effect of “I’m not Episcopalian, I’m Wiccan,” he would have been instantly discredited (and for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with longstanding anti-Wiccan prejudices).

Which brings me to another important point about McCain’s “slip”: it was provable.
His handlers surely knew that reporters would reach for their cellphones with dispatch and start making not-so-discrete inquiries. And then the happy story would proceed to tell itself. The senator’s wife and two of their children, America would learn, are Baptists. His attendance at a Baptist Church in Phoenix, the nation would soon understand, has been solid. Better yet, the pastor over there thinks he’s a good guy too! All of this information, incidentally, has been in the public record for years. So a commendation for Effective News Cycle Manipulation goes to Team McCain.

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In theory, on paper, and in an enhanced 3-D computer simulation, presidential hopeful John McCain should score big among White Evangelicals. As I noted on Tuesday, this is not the case. His relations with their power brokers have ranged from correct, to chilly, to catastrophic.

Explanations for his difficulties can be divided into two broad categories. The first could be labeled “It’s McCain’s damn fault!” The second, “These Evangelicals are impossible to deal with!” No matter how we delegate blame, their encounters throughout the years have never failed to entertain.

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