Political leaders and religious beliefs

The Canadian newsweekly Macleans does this annual year-end poll thing, and one of the questions they asked this year was "Do you think political leaders should be using their religious beliefs to guide their actions at all times, sometimes, or never?" Overall, the responses were about what I'd expect from Canadians: "At all times," 9%, "sometimes," 24%, and "never," 65%. The truly fascinating statistic, though, is what happens when you limit it to the people who had already identified themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians. Then the numbers look more like this: "At all times," 18%, "sometimes," 30%, and "never" ... wait for it ... 49%.

Nearly *half* of the Canadian born-again Christians sampled believe that politicians should *never* use their religious beliefs to guide their actions. That just astounds me. (In a good way.)