redblueamerica.com

Somebody should tell the guys at Politico that April Fools Day was Tuesday. Because today they have an article about how the Republican candidate for president doesn't really want to make a big deal of his faith -- in stark contrast to the Democratic candidates, who just won't shut up about it.

Or wait. Maybe they're being serious.

In this way, McCain, 71, is a throwback to an earlier generation when such personal matters were kept personal. To talk of Jesus Christ in the comfortable, matter of fact fashion of the past two baby-boom era presidents would be unthinkable.

“It’s a faith-based country,” observes Sen. Sam Brownback, a devout Catholic who has grown closer to McCain since backing his candidacy last year. “Presidential candidates should acknowledge that and say just what is their identity as it relates to that.” In McCain’s case, he will eventually face a Democratic nominee in either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton who are not only regular churchgoers, but also accustomed to discussing the role faith plays in their lives. “My guess is that either Clinton or Obama may force a bigger discussion by [McCain] of faith,” Brownback says, acknowledging that their doing so “poses a bit of a challenge.”

One can appreciate the irony and still feel a little bit uncomfortable with it. You like to see some lip service paid, at least, to the idea that there's "no religious test" for public office, but there's none of that here. (On the other hand it is Sam Brownback talking here; I'm reluctant to throw around the word "theocrat" as an unnecessarily inflammatory perjorative, but it might actually be accurate in his case.)

From a faith perspective, too, the idea that a presidential candidate has to become some kind of religious performing monkey is ugly as, well, sin. It trivializes the faith. Let McCain be McCain.