NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Baptist Press reports that the most recent look at President Bush's evangelical Christian faith in a PBS "Frontline" series installment, "The Jesus Factor," has been assessed by other media as revealing but fair.

A San Diego Union-Tribune writer described it as "an evenhanded, even cautious, examination" of Bush's faith, while a New York Daily News writer credited the effort as "impressively open-minded and objective."

A Seattle Times writer noted that interviews with "the president's friends, foes and observers" leave viewers with an ability to "form their own conclusions."

A New York Times writer likened the program to "those illustrated anatomy books where transparent plastic pages can be flipped to reveal the muscle, bone and organs beneath the skin. Stripping off the layers of patrician pedigree, Yale and his Texas business pursuits, the documentary lays bare Mr. Bush's spiritual conversion and its consequences."

"There's no question that the president's faith is real, that it's authentic, that it's genuine," Doug Wead, an evangelical adviser to Bush's father in the 1988 presidential campaign, said in an interview for the program archived on the PBS website.

Wead continued: "... and there's no question that it's calculated. I know that sounds like a contradiction. But that will always be the case for a public figure, regardless of their faith, whether they're Islamic, or Jewish or Christian. ... Gandhi once said, 'He who says that religion and politics don't mix understands neither one.'"

Two other evangelical leaders were featured on the program: Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs with the National Association of Evangelicals.

Wead, Land and Cizik's comments were interspersed with those from two religious critics of the Bush administration, C. Welton Gaddy, head of The Interfaith Alliance, and Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine, along with several analysts and journalists.

The documentary also included video clips of Bush reflective of his faith.

The full PBS program can be viewed online at www.pbs.org beginning Saturday, May 1. The full transcript should be available "in about a week following the initial broadcast," according to the website. VHS and DVD copies also can be ordered there.