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.