American secularists. Try bringing up god in relation to politics, and watch them bristle. And for good reason, too — did you see what the Christians did to the place once they got in power? We’ll never get our bond back.

Expect a nuclear allergic reaction from reading them this passage (and others) from Barack Obama:

And during the course of that sermon, I was introduced to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed and that if I placed my trust in Christ, He could set me on the path to eternal life.

Ideally, a rational thinker would be in the White House. Someone who knows how to think critically, and who knows the difference between evidence and not-evidence. (Which disqualifies Grandpa McCain.) But until that day, we’re stuck with either a politician who panders to religion, or (worse) a politician who actually believes it. Obama comes uncomfortably close to the latter.

But maybe we’re not all sunk. Consider the situation we faced over here in Australia with Kevin Rudd, leader of the center-left ALP. From the outset, he made it clear that not only was he a believer, but that he didn’t intend to abandon faith to the Right, and that his religious beliefs were going to inform his politics.

At the time, I found this inappropriate. Australia’s secular! Couldn’t we just let the right-wing have religion, and then the grown-ups can get on with the work? But of course, I voted Labor. (Well, Secular, with preferences to Labor.) And lo and behold, Labor did turf out the Liberals, and there was much rejoicing.

And then what did Rudd do when he got into office? He ratified Kyoto, he apologised to the Stolen Generation of Aboriginal Australians, and he introduced legislation to dismantle Workplace Agreements (which allow employers to pay you less than scale if you ‘agree’). He sent Navy ships to monitor Japanese whalers, for Pete’s sake! And that’s just the first 100 days. Not a bad start.

Everyone picks and chooses out of scripture. As a credit to his character, Rudd picked and chose parts of the Bible that happened to correspond to not being a moralistic cretin. The Religious Right loves Deuteronomy because that reflects what they like — especially hating on gays. Rudd’s more of a Sermon on the Mount kind of guy.

But if our starting point in this debate is supposed to be Christianity (and therefore a Christian view of morality), then my challenge to the Coalition is as follows: isn’t our preparedness to feed the hungry and give shelter to the homeless a moral value; isn’t our preparedness to respond humanely to those who seek refuge in this country from political oppression elsewhere a moral value; and is not our response to the 1.5 billion people around the world in abject poverty also a question of moral values?

Obama’s not as gung-ho on the separation of church and state as a Democrat ought to be (a bit like Rudd), but he does agree that faith has been hijacked (as does Rudd). He has reached out to non-believers. His rhetoric seems more inspirational than doctrinal. I think (or perhaps just hope) that Obama might be more a Rudd-style Christian, and less a Huckabee-style one.

I can live with that, at least until the coming Glorious Age of Rationalism bursts upon us.