I’ve been listening to presidential hopefuls declare their intentions to run for President in 2008. I have a question—how will each candidate incorporate his personal beliefs into his decision-making? Inevitably, our worldviews will show and our deepest beliefs will become evident. Specifically, how will their personal religious convictions affect their leadership style?

As human beings, we cannot easily compartmentalize ourselves, placing our most fundamental beliefs about God, morality, and truth in one compartment and our political and public beliefs in another. We are not made that way.

The U.S. Constitution demands that there be no religious test for public office. That means that the government cannot prohibit anyone's candidacy on that basis.

It makes sense to me that candidates should be as forthright and direct about their personal religious views as about any other question. Those who make too much of their beliefs risk appearing as a candidate for national preacher. Those who make too little of their beliefs risk appearing insincere and evasive. Those who seek to exploit their beliefs will do themselves political harm.

Unfortunately, I think John F. Kennedy set an poor example when he told a group of Baptist preachers in Houston in 1960 that his Catholicism would have virtually nothing to do with his presidential decision-making. How could that be? I want to know how a political candidate makes decisions, weighs priorities, and gains strength in crisis.

We are not electing a national preacher, rabbi, imam, or priest, but we are electing a human being. As much as possible, I want to know what that human being believes at the deepest levels and how those beliefs form character, perspective, and political decisions.

Of course, for that to happen we would have to move beyond sound bites and flashy TV commercials.