For a few months now I have been wondering if the news organizations conducting the debates have intentionally refrained from asking the candidates about their faith. Is this what Huckabee meant by religion being “off limits”? If that's the case -- I have no proof that it is -- he may have a legitimate complaint (and the networks have a responsibility to inform their audiences that they are operating in accordance with these protocols).

Then again, Cameron’s question was not about religion per se, but about electability. He wanted to know if women could be expected to vote for a candidate who believes that they should “submit” to their husbands.

Figuring out who submits to whom in the Book of Ephesians, as my readers know too well, got us all off on something of an exegetical hoedown. So let's proceed to the rest of Huckabee's remarks:

Huckabee: The whole context of that passage [an unspecified portion of the Book of Ephesians] -- and, by the way, it really was spoken to believers, to Christian believers. I'm not the least bit ashamed of my faith or the doctrines of it. I don't try to impose that as a governor and I wouldn't impose it as a president. But I certainly am going to practice it unashamedly, whether I'm a president or whether I'm not a president

This answer is persuasive with the possible exception that it contradicts nearly every single thing Huckabee has told us about himself on the campaign trail. Little in his rhetoric over the previous few months indicates that he could keep his personal religious beliefs from influencing his political actions. Little in his rhetoric indicates that he wants to keep his personal religious beliefs from influencing his political actions.

If by offering these assurances Huckabee was trying to gain the trust of secular Americans then he has a lot of work to do. Calling himself a “Christian leader” was not a confidence-building measure. Having the slogan “Faith. Family. Freedom.” adorn his Web site does little to assuage the fear that President Huckabee would instruct the Army Corps of Engineers to go tunneling under the Wall of Separation.

But it is Huckabee's repeated insistence that he and his faith convictions are inseparable, which guarantees that he will not be receiving the endorsement of Americans United for Separation of Church and State any time soon. His Web site features the mantra: “My faith is my life -- it defines me. My faith doesn't influence my decisions, it drives them.” And just in case one senses ambiguity in that formulation consider the following variation on this theme from Huckabee:

"I’ve said in general, and I would say this tonight to any of us, when a person says my faith doesn’t affect my decision-making, I would say that the person’s saying their faith is not significant enough to impact their decision process. I tell people up front my faith does affect my decision process. It explains me. No apology for that. My faith says, 'Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.'"

There seems to be a logical contradiction here. How could a politician whose decisions are driven by his faith not impose them in his work as a politician? What makes Huckabee unacceptable to secular Americans is not (or should not be) that he takes his faith very seriously. Rather, the problem is that by his own admission he is both powerless and unwilling to separate it from his duties as an elected leader of the people.

(For more information about religion and the candidates, visit Faith 2008 by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.)