Clinton, Obama on God and faith

Personal faith: “You know, I have, ever since I’ve been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life. And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining.”

Environment: “When I think about the simple steps any one of us can take—you know, turning off lights when one leaves a room, unplugging appliances, changing to compact flourescent bulbs—you know, my husband and I have done that … we feel like we’re making a small contribution to limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.”

Poverty: “In my Judeo-Christian faith tradition, in both the Old and the New Testament, the incredible demands that God places on us and that the prophets ask of us, and that Christ called us to respond to on behalf of the poor are unavoidable.”

Barack OBAMA

Abortion and life at conception: “This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on. I think it’s very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don’t presume to know the answer to that question.”

Personal faith: “You know, if I’m acting in an ethical way, if I am working to make sure that I am applying what I consider to be a core value of Christianity, but also a core value of all great religions, and that is that I am my brother’s keeper and I am my sister’s keeper, then I will be doing my part to move his agenda forward.”

Environment: “We are going to put in place a cap-and-trade system that controls the amount of greenhouse gases that are going into the atmosphere. … We’ve got to be less wasteful, both as a society and in our own individual lives.”

Poverty: “We’ve got to shore up the mortgage market to make sure that we don’t have millions of people who are losing their homes. We’re going to have to, I think, change our tax code.”