1.....“INTEGRITY” is the answer I got from everyone I asked, “What is the most important quality we need in our next president?” I was interviewing in preparation for answering the “On Faith” questions “What should we be looking for in a presidential candidate? What do we need to know about the moral values and religious beliefs of a candidate?”

Instead of “integrity,” cynics might answer “celebrity.” Too bad, but non-celebs are “unelectable,” and it would be unwise to thrown away one’s vote on any of them. In the present media-besotted, entertainment-dulled, sports-mad American psyche, celebrities are the divinities. Hollow divinities: contrived celebrity is fame fed only by being famous. To gain the White House, the present president first bought a baseball team and became famous for managing it.

“What we should be looking for in a presidential candidate” is someone with more integrity than we the people now have. We need a president morally superior not only to the president we have but morally superior to us. But does the devious process of candidacy—the process of inducing the morally inferior to vote for the morally superior--discourage persons of integrity from candidacy? Power corrupts: Is the process of seeking power so corrupting as to fatally compromise the integrity of the candidate? Indeed, is the very desire to seek power fatal to integrity?

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1.....Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (d.1972) and his martini came to mind as I read this “On Faith” assignment: “We know what ‘Jewish identity’ has meant in the past. What will it mean in the future? How does a minority religion retain its roots and embrace change?"

Of all the Jews I have known, Abe Heschel best represents the Jewish mind in its affirmation of roots, exploration of range, and adjustment to change. A master of Judaism’s formative literature, he lived a profound spirituality through his Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative periods, had more Christian readers than any other rabbi of his time, and was a vigorous proponent of justice in ecumenical and political life.

2.....His martini? My sharpest memory of him is not the public image of his marching at Selma with Martin Luther King Jr. It was of a cocktail party. We were in close conversation, both of us leaning on the curve of a Steinway. When I mentioned the name of the then-President of the United States, Richard Nixon, Heschel so trembled with rage that, fearing its spilling, he set his martini down on the piano. (Also, so that he could use both hands to talk.) Of Selma, he later said “My feet were praying.” Of that experience at an authors’ Manhattan party, he could have said “My hand trembled.” (As for Nixon, a few years later, in his last interview with David Frost, he confessed that he had betrayed everyone and everything he ever loved.)

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Around the world and through history, VIRTUE//VICE lists are a staple of ethics and religion, behavior and belief. The current “On Faith” questions involve a VICE list: “In Christian theology, there are Seven Deadly Sins: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. Which of these do you think is the worst? Which is most prevalent and harmful in our society today?”

GREED is my choice. It’s both the worst and, in our society today, the most prevalent and harmful. But before supporting my choice, I must make two adjustments:

..........The Seven Deadly Sins are broadly “in Christian theology,” but specifically they are a vice catalog within Roman Catholic ethics. In the English language, they are not known to have appeared together until 1711. Further, virtue/vice catalogs precede Christianity in classical (Greek and Roman) and Jewish literature.

..........Generally, Christian ethics treats first of virtues, only thereafter of vices. Traditionally, the virtues are seven: four classical (prudence, justice, courage, temperance), three specifically Christian (faith, hope, love).

In the Christian paradigm, life in all its aspects is to be seen as providential, as divinely given. Early Christianity described Christian character by lists of virtues-values so conceived. In Galatians 5:22, the virtues are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” In Ephesians 5:9, the values are “all that is good and right and true.” In Philippians 4:8, Christians are to “think about these things”: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable...any excellence...anything worthy of praise.”

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Visible from any angle within my father’s courtroom, and situated between the judge’s bench and the witness stand, was a small BIBLE. It was the cynosure of solemnity, both symbol and sacrament. Symbol in that the sessions of this New York court were conducted under the Judge of all the earth (“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” [Genesis 18:25]). Sacrament (Latin for “oath”) for the hand of the witness, about to be judged on veracity by both the Court of heaven and the court of earth.

Now to the question: “Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says ‘we...need to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.’ What do you think?”

I think that statement delivered a knockout blow to Huckabee’s hope of the White House.

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Life would be easier—wouldn’t it?—if we didn’t need human leaders in either “state” or “church,” and didn’t need to suffer the successions from one leader to another. But we must somehow sail—in “church” and “state”—between lawless anarchy and freedomless tyranny, and the sailing takes skilled piloting.

The current “On Faith” question is, “How important are leadership styles and personalities of religious leaders to rank and file members of the faith and to public perception of those faiths?”

1.....The question implicitly invites religious leaders to ask themselves “How do I look to my people, and what does my faith look like to the general public?” Good question, but of third importance. Of second importance is the leader’s faith, character, integrity, authenticity, quality. Of first importance is the leader’s self-understanding as standing under the judgment and guidance of a superior—the source of the primary humility of worthy leaders of "state" as well as of "church."

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