“I am not actively involved with organized religion,” Sanders said in a recent interview.

Sanders said he believes in God, though not necessarily in a traditional manner.

“I think everyone believes in God in their own ways,” he said. “To me, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together.”…

“I can’t tell you how seldom we talked about religion,” said Stanley “Huck” Gutman, a professor of English at the University of Vermont and Sanders’s former chief of staff. Gutman then described his friend’s moral code in terms of core religious tenets.

“He often talks about ‘the ethical thing to do,’ ” said Gutman, “and his ethics are shaped by a concern for social justice and for other human beings that is part of a Judeo-Christian tradition.”