Mr. Weatherford (“Obama must demonstrate true faith,” Jan. 16) should remember that outward religious expression is not always a reliable indicator of a relationship with God. After all, the most religious people in the New Testament were the Pharisees, who were all about showing how religious they were, without actually taking God’s teachings into their hearts.

In Matthew 23:28, Jesus said of the Pharisees, “…On the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” If Obama prefers to pray in private, rather than in front of all of the cameras, we need to let him.

Steve Levering is an instructor at the Schieffer School of Journalism.