TALK IS CHEAP, EVEN WHEN IT'S ABOUT FAITH

Today in the Washington Post op-ed pages, a Christian theologian begs the presidential candidates to quit talking about their personal faith:

Jesus knew that mere talk about faith could be cheap. That's why he sardonically said something that everyone who hears faith-chatter during this campaign season should remember: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." What does it mean to do this will? A little later in the same Gospel of Matthew, Jesus clarifies: Live generously in relationship to the least among us.

That doesn't mean that anyone has the right to definitively judge the faith of anyone else. But it does mean that encouraging the president and the senator to open up more about God may be unhelpful both politically and theologically.