To paraphrase the spiritual quoted above, “every presidential candidate talking about heaven ain’t going there.” The requirement that candidates talk the language of faith will only tempt politicians to inauthentic faith language.

That said, where it is authentic to a candidate to talk about his or her faith publicly, this is part of who they are and the American voter will want to know that. People of faith should not be required to segregate their faith into a sphere of “private life” if that is not part of how they understand the life of faith. Nor should they be required to parade their faith in public if that is not their choice.

What we as voters want to know is the character of the people who are candidates for president; their proposed policies are important, but so is their truthfulness, their emotional balance, their strength of conviction, and mostly their ability to stand up to the job with humor, compassion and seriousness of purpose. The language of faith can give us a window into those characteristics; there are other ways we as voters can discern those character traits as well. Just talking the language of faith is no guarantee of high character and voters should not be misled into thinking it is.

There is no religious test for holding office in the United States of America. That is prescribed in our Constitution and it has served us well. Let’s not tempt people to hypocritical statements of faith just to satisfy a superficial test of “character.”

Faith is too important to let it become a political “wedge” issue.