Beliefnet's God-o-Meter (Gah-DOM-meter) is tuned to both the Kerry-Edwards and the Bush-Cheney camps, measuring factors such as mentions of God per 30 seconds, context (invoking God to, say, justify tax cuts would send the God-o-Meter into a frenzy), and other subtle criteria. With a startling degree of scientific accuracy, God-o-Meter then rates each campaign on a 10-point scale from "secularist" to "theocrat."During the 2000 election, our first God-o-Meter led us to describe that race as having "the most faith-talk of any in the 20th century." Records, of course, are made to be broken. While Bush recently flew overnight to grab a photo-op with the pope and Kerry jabbed politely back with a reference to the Book of James (see chart), the upcoming set-to between a born-again Bush and Catholic Kerry already has God-o-Meter's needle twitching ominously.
Here's a fun way to keep track of how the candidates for president are taking about faith this election year.
