I recall that in 1980 all three candidates--Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and John Anderson-- claimed to be “born-again Christians.” When all make the claim, credibility becomes the issue. No one has ever doubted the authenticity of President Carter’s religious commitment, but in 1980 the “religious vote” went to Ronald Reagan. That was unusual especially in that it must be noted that if Mr. Reagan were a “born again Christian,” that fact did not seem to require either that he attend a church with some regularity or that he support a church with regular contributions.

To show the complexity of this issue we observe that one of the most deeply spiritual presidents we have ever had, Abraham Lincoln, was known not to be a church attendee at all. In 1952, Unitarian Adlai Stevenson ran against unbaptized Dwight Eisenhower and the issue of religion never came up in the campaign. It needs to be stated that both later became quite proper Presbyterians.

It was the Roman Catholicism of John F. Kennedy in 1960 that is given credit for making religion so overt an issue in national politics. America had rejected the only other Roman Catholic candidate who had been a major party nominee, Alfred E. Smith of New York in 1928. I am certain that Smith’s Roman Catholicism was an issue in his defeat though it is hard to say that it was the determinative issue in that election. Senator Kennedy defused a potential anti-Catholic vote in 1960, we recall, by saying that he would not allow his religion to determine his behavior as president. That seemed to be a satisfactory place for a Roman Catholic candidate to stand in 1960.

In 1984, however, when Roman Catholic Geraldine Ferraro was a vice presidential nominee and in 2004, when Roman Catholic John Kerry was a presidential nominee, the Kennedy stance was judged to be inappropriate by Roman Catholic bishops who insisted that the moral stands of their church must be the policy of American Catholic politicians – or the withholding of communion was threatened.

I want my presidents to have a clear sense of who they are, including a sense of what they believe and how they live out that belief. I also want every president to know that this is a multi-faith nation and our leader must be respectful of all religious traditions and unwilling to impose any particular religious viewpoint upon the whole body politic.

I trace the beginning of the decline in popularity of the present incumbent to his attempt, supported by Senator Bill Frist and Representative Tom DeLay, to make conservative Christian end-of-life issues in the Terri Schiavo case a political cause, designed to win the support of his religious base. In a similar manner, President Bush’s use of such things as the teaching of “Intelligent Design” as an alternative to evolution and his making homosexuality a political issue, both in response to his presumed religious values and certainly to gain support from right wing religious voters, was appalling to me.

There is a fine line between religious devotion and the use of religion in the public arena to gain election. I want candidates for the presidency to know how to walk that line.