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At a January 1994 ceremony in Richmond, Virginia, to honor "Religious Freedom Day," Al Gore summarized his faith: "Like Jefferson, I believe that God is too powerful and mysterious to be contained within the rigid orthodoxy of any religious faith." As he has emerged from the lengthening shadows of the Clinton administration, Gore's ever-changing public persona has been the butt of talk-show comedy acts and has fogged his identity in opinion polls. But when it comes to religion, Gore seems to have settled comfortably into a progressive variation of Christianity. Christianity Today's interviews with close associates of Gore reveal a man driven to master his world internally and externally, and a politician who approaches public office with the pious vigor of a clergyman.

From early childhood, Gore was conditioned to be spiritually bicultural. The Southern Baptist world in rural Tennessee rarely intersected with urban Washington, D.C., and its religiously elite Episcopalians. But the Gore family mastered both environments. Gore absorbed a stiff-upper-lip moralism at the select Episcopalian St. Albans School for boys on the grounds of the National Cathedral. Its spiritual leader, Canon Charles Martin, preached to his boys to always "choose the hard right over the easy wrong."Gore's capacity for self-discipline was remarkable even by the standards of St. Albans. "It was almost unnatural for a boy to be that well-behaved," recalls John C. Davis, a sacred-studies teacher. When the St. Albans bus broke down on a science field trip in 1958, many of the boys took a respite by running around in open fields. Gore approached science teacher Alexander Haslam, asking, "Sir, is this the time to be rowdy?" The boy's self-control seemed without flaw. Poking fun at his saintly air, Gore's yearbook editors affixed this caption beneath his picture: "People without weaknesses are terrible."Gore's sobriety was not surprising considering that he grew up in a formal relationship with his father, lived in a hotel, and had limited interaction with peers. Every morning the young Gore prepared for school in Suite 809 atop the Fairfax Hotel along Washington's Embassy Row, carefully combing his hair so that not a strand was astray. He rode the elevator attired in his school uniform, suitably matching the dark suits of the grownups around him. His father, Albert Gore Sr., came to Washington as a Democratic congressman from central Tennessee, eventually moving up to the Senate, while harboring presidential ambitions. Sen. Gore would take his son around the capital city at a fast clip, all the while enjoining, "Keep up son! Keep up!" He was determined to teach the young boy that the race went to the swift. Sen. Gore highly prized his sense of dignity and formality, even with his son. Years later, Gore began his father's funeral oration by saying, "My father was the greatest man I ever knew in my life." Gore has fondly recalled his father's moral rectitude: "The last advice he gave me, when he was almost too weak to speak, was this: Always do right."A steady river of experts, scientists, and policy wonks has always moved through Gore's life from his early days. Gore's office staff has become accustomed to his decrees: "More data!" "Download more information!" or "Be mathematically grounded!"A childhood friend recalls that when the young Gore and his father would talk, it was about the latest news on trade or some other policy topic. "They didn't talk about the things ordinary folks do."When Gore met with a physician friend concerning Gore's sister, who had lung cancer, he interrupted the physician's simple explanation, demanding precision and facts: "Well, look, there are ten cancers of the lung. Which one does she have?"

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October 23 2000, Vol. 44, No. 12