This should come as little surprise. In researching the American presidency
over the past half century for "God in the White House," I found only one
president in that span of time who actually sought consistently to govern
according to the religious principles he articulated in his campaign for the
White House: Jimmy Carter.

There's little evidence, for example, to suggest that John F. Kennedy, the
nation's first (and still the only) Roman Catholic to serve as president,
inflected his faith into his administration's policies. Ronald Reagan
insisted that abortion was the defining moral issue of his time, and he
campaigned twice for the presidency promising to outlaw it. Yet, as even his
supporters now acknowledge, he made no serious effort to outlaw abortion
(and he mentioned the issue not even once in his autobiography of over seven
hundred pages).

Billy Graham detected vast reservoirs of faith and piety in his friend
Richard Nixon, who hosted worship services in the White House. Probity,
however, is not the first word that comes to mind in recalling the Nixon
administration. And Bill Clinton's many critics are justified in pointing
out the disjunction between his professions of faith and his conduct in the
Oval Office.

Carter, the only exception to this litany, proves the rule. The former
governor of Georgia ran for office promising a government as "good and
decent as the American people" and pledging never to "knowingly lie." After
he sought actually to govern according to his moral principles - revising
the Panama Canal treaties, calling attention to human rights abuses
throughout the world, seeking peace in the Middle East - the American people
denied him a second term.

So where does that leave us, the voters? If we persist in vetting a
candidate's faith, we should (at the very least) pay attention to the
answers. Suppose that, eight years ago, when George W. Bush declared on the
eve of the Iowa precinct caucuses that Jesus was his favorite philosopher,
someone had asked a follow-up question. "Mr. Bush, Jesus, your favorite
philosopher, invited his followers to love their enemies and to turn the
other cheek. How will that guide your foreign policy, especially in the
event, say, of an attack on the United States?"

Or: "Governor Bush, your favorite philosopher expressed concern for the
tiniest sparrow. How will that sentiment be reflected in your
administration's environmental policies?" Or: "Jesus called his followers to
care for 'the least of these.' How does that teaching inform your views on
tax policy or welfare reform?"

Just a thought.