The Times - Was God in the White House?
Past Notes: we think of presidents as churchgoers, but 11 out of 43 were not members of a church, by Graham Stewart

“The White House is the pulpit of the nation,” the American journalist James Reston once claimed, “and the president is its chaplain.” No wonder, then, that the inflammatory sermons of Barack Obama’s own spiritual mentor are causing alarm.

Voters contemplating electing a black president are now also pondering whether they want a congregant of the Rev Jeremiah Wright’s branch of the United Church of Christ. Would not the Methodist Hillary Clinton or Episcopalian-turned-Baptist John McCain be a bit more mainstream?

Despite the constitutional separation of Church and State, the one category of American that seems ruled out for the White House is not black or female, but atheist.

Yet it is a relatively recent assumption that the president should be a regular churchgoer. Although none renounced religion, 11 of the 43 presidents were not members of a church. For most of the presidency’s history, a candidate’s spiritual affiliation was rarely an issue unless he was a practising Catholic.

Heheh.

For all this, presidents get only so much latitude. As the 1968 presidential hopeful Senator Eugene McCarthy pointed out, in Washington “only two kinds of religion are tolerated: vague beliefs strongly affirmed and strong beliefs vaguely expressed”.

Heheheh.

Date: Mar 22nd, 2008 · Comments RSS · Tags: History