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John Mccain has finally begun to talk his walk with Jesus. Until recently, the details about the Republican presidential nominee's Christian convictions were missing in action. Starting this summer, McCain and some of his closest Vietnam War-era buddies began pulling back the narrative curtain.

These war stories reveal McCain's stoic, generically Christian spirituality and his honor-driven self-discipline. During his five-plus years as a prisoner in Hanoi, McCain had many defining religious moments. One Sunday in 1971, the North Vietnamese Communists decided to put an end to the church services being held by the prisoners. They burst into Room 7 and dragged McCain out. "Bud Day [commander among the prisoners] jumped up and sang 'God Bless America.' It was singing to the heavens," recalled fellow prisoner Orson Swindle in a recent interview with Christianity Today. "The Vietnamese dragged Day out and someone else jumped up." Next, Swindle and others started loudly singing, "Onward Christian Soldiers." That provoked a squad of armed soldiers to rush in and shut down the service completely. McCain was thrown into solitary confinement.

The prisoners' Christmas celebration that year proved to be another defining experience for McCain. For weeks, prisoners had demanded an English-language Bible to conduct a proper Christmas observance. The guards eventually relented and allowed one prisoner access to a Bible for 30 minutes. McCain was chosen. Using tiny pieces of broken pencil lead, McCain copied the Nativity story down on scrap paper. And on the evening of December 25, 1971, the prisoners held their service with the Lord's Prayer and Christmas carols as McCain recounted the birth of Christ. At the end, all sang, with much weeping, "Silent Night."

The prayer lives of these prisoners of war blossomed as never before, but not necessarily with prayers for freedom. Commander Day put it this way: "We told the guys that they could pray, but that they shouldn't pray to be released or be saved from their situation." As McCain later explained in an interview, "I think it was important, for the stability factor, that it wasn't God who was going to perform a miracle, end the war, and bring us home." Their concern was that praying the wrong way would weaken their resolve.

McCain's imprisonment included long stretches of solitary confinement. To this day, McCain's devotional practice remains a bit of a mystery. Perhaps this commitment to spiritual privacy is one reason McCain has not connected well with the high-profile faith of many evangelical leaders.

Few if any of the evangelical leaders consulted for this article consider themselves intimate with the Arizona senator—including some of McCain's most fervent faith-friendly supporters. McCain's maverick persona also grates on many mainstream evangelicals. It's no surprise, then, that many evangelical voters remained wary of McCain's bid for the presidency until he named as his running mate Sarah Palin, the conservative governor of Alaska.

This summer, more voters identified as evangelicals (12 percent) were undecided than they were at the same time in the 2004 presidential campaign. In a July ap-Yahoo News poll, a slender 10 percent of white evangelicals said they were excited about the election. But picking Palin has injected fresh enthusiasm.

The fear factor is also in play, and is coming from three sources—each one focused on Democratic nominee Barack Obama. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has branded Obama an extremist liberal. In July, the McCain campaign released the apocalyptic "The One" TV ad, which suggested that the Illinois senator has a messiah complex. And Jerome Corsi's new bestseller, The Obama Nation, alleges that the candidate has had extensive associations with Islam, despite Obama's repeated denials.

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October 2008, Vol. 52, No. 10