Whether a candidate were intensely religious, indifferent to religion, or indescribably complex about it, I'd welcome a chance to include knowledge of it in an overall appraisal. Religion, non-religion, weak-religion tells us, or may tell us, something valuable about a candidate. We are still seeing book length works on candidate/president Abraham Lincoln, the only non-church member but perhaps the most biblically shaped of all our presidents. And what scholars set forth on that subject helps us evaluate Lincoln's fateful actions.

Having said so and done so, however, I'd be very careful about making the religious commitment determinative; the candidate is running for president, not archbishop of ayatollah.

I'd prefer Deist Thomas Jefferson to many a Bible-spouting galoot who "gets religion" when the cameras come by.

John McCain is not a Bible-spouting galoot. I do think, though, that he is playing into the hands of--maybe he WANTS to play into the hands of those who exploit and manipulate religion or want to be exploited or manipulated by reference to it. There is a blurry line between his talk of "admiration" and feeling at ease with a candidate who is pronouncedly religious, in a time when some come close to violating Article VI of the Constitution and Amendment I of same.

We have enough people around who are mis-writing history, as if the Founders were giving legislative preference to Christianity. James Madison was sure that such a move would lead to hypocrisy and delusions and misuse. Let McCain specify exactly what in what part of the Christian tradition moves him and would affect the way he carries out his duties, and we could vote him or it up or down--and then retreat to quieter forms of national, political, religious, and Christian witness on this subject.

I hope my answer will be uninteresting and routine:

When I profess the creed with the congregations where I am worshiping, I don't gulp at the final words and indeed delight in them:

. . . and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. . . .

Translation: If I begin the creed with "I believe in a Creator. . . "and go on to witness to the reach and protection and love of God, then it makes more sense to assume that that love will not end with my physical death.

Explain? I have not the faintest idea. I like to quote theologian Karl Rahner who called death "the abyss of mystery," which is a way of saying that I/we have no words, concepts, reaches of imagination to make sense of that in ordinary conceptions. And I don't need that.

No, I have had no post-death experiences, and have not been moved by any testimonies by those who have. I wouldn't dream of talking them out of it, but just have to say that I do not find them convincing or helpful.

I'll just stay stuck with the beginning and end of the creeds, along with most of two billion others, even as we commend to God with hope and no sense of dismissal the hopes of those who are not Christian. It's not a contest of "our concept is better than your concept," but rather grateful acceptance of what little one grasps in the "abyss of mystery."

Do all religions have essentially the same message, about love, compassion, and forgiveness?

I don't know "all religions," but I am fearfully confident that the 16-volume The Encyclopedia of Religion would lead me to many that obscure that message with so many practices and beliefs that it'd be hard to bring that trio forward. Some religious leaders would no doubt say that their faith is essential about, e.g., justice, and in their minds it might conflict with love, compassion, and forgiveness.

But let's give the Dalai Lama the general point about his generalization. He is a man of great good will and good effect, and I would not want to criticize him and his reaching out here. We do have to ask, however, what we do with such a hunch or such knowledge.

In my observation, the practices and beliefs of the separate religions, which do share many things, "get interesting" in the minds and hearts of billions of people when mediated through the stories that give them, animate them, and hold them to a faith. And we live by such stories.

So I am happy to look to the nearby zone and see Buddhists or Hindus being loving, compassionate, and forgiving. Yet we Christians, typically, are motivate to pursue love, compassion, and forgiveness, because of our particular story--e.g. of Jesus Christ--just as the Dalai Lama draws on particular Tibetan Buddhism and not generic religion.

As Santayana said, we do not talk "language," we talk "a language." The Dalai Lama is a great influence on helping people not be captive of and exclusive about their stories, beliefs, and practices, but believers and "behavers" ordinarily are not impelled by abstractions so much as by the concrete stories and what they represent, within, say, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.

How scary is Hallowe'en?
As scary as costume-makers, party-givers, and commercial interests want to make it. The morning after the costumes get packed away, the residues of the parties get mopped up, and the markets get ready for Christmas and Valentine's Day sales. It's hard to picture many children being traumatized or adults converted, or deconverted, by the evening's doings. It is not scary at all to those who do not don costumes, go to parties, or buy black and orange objects. It's hard to picture many of them being much different than they were before the occasion.

Is it anti-Christian?
Is it anti-Jewish?
Is it pro-pagan?

If I wanted to undercut or oppose Christianity or Judaism, I could find many better investments than putting energy into the mix of pseudo-symbols associated with Hallowe'en. Pseudo? Not many of the symbols rise out of the historic evidences of the classic faiths; these tend to be cartoon caricatures, far removed from the beliefs and practices of the Christian middle ages, and unrecognizable by anyone who knows much about classical witchcraft. And if I were a pagan, a witch, a promoter of Wicca, I'd look for more serious ways to present the cases.

When Christians and Jews over-react to phenomena like this, they show more about their outlook--prissy, aggrieved, defensive--than about actual challenges to faith. My advice to co-religionists: when someone says "boo!", say "boo!" back, and go about your business. That responsive "boo!" could mean: "see you tomorrow, November 1"--and if it's a Christian with whom the "boo!-boo!" exchange is going on, remind the other partner to the conversation that November 1 is All Saints' Day, a day which for Christians is a serious holiday of remembrance.