IT IS A FACTOR, NOT THE FACTOR

Should a candidate for the Presidency of the United States ask for votes because of his or her membership in a religious organization or because of his or her beliefs about deity?

Should the well-intentioned voter seek out candidates for the Presidency of the United States primarily because of the religious beliefs those candidates hold??

Answers to questions like these are very, very simple.

Presidents of the United States are not chief ministers, rabbis, priests, or mullahs or whatever. They are secular leaders of what is admittedly a largely Christian country, but they are not religious leaders.

Whether they are theistic or atheistic should not be the main factor upon which a voter decides for whom to vote.

The proper formula goes something like this: If a voter finds that:

1 The candidate understands the problems facing the US and US society;
2 The candidate understands how to solve those problems;
3 The problems and solutions recognized by the candidate are the problems and solutions the voter agrees need to be addressed;

then the voter can and should vote for that candidate. If the candidate belongs to a religion or a belief system that the voter agrees with, then so much the better.

The US Presidential Election is electing the leader of the most powerful nation in history. His or her religion can be A factor. It must never be THE factor.

Finally, it is one thing for a candidate to mention that they belong to this or that belief system; that they attend this or that place of worship. Or, indeed, that they attend no place of worship.

It is quite another thing for them to try to attract voters on the basis of whether they attend this or that or nothing.

Beware the candidate who comes ‘bearing a cross’.