The Bully Pulpit: Religion in Presidential Rhetoric
Timothy Sherratt Monday, 1 September 2008
Polls suggest that Americans generally welcome the expression of religious perspectives in presidential rhetoric. In a July 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, over half of respondents approved of the frequency with which President Bush mentions his faith. And an additional 14 percent said they wish he would make more frequent references. Only 25 percent said they wish he would desist.
However, because of America's religious diversity and constitutional ban on the official establishment of a religion, a president's use of explicitly religious language raises a key question: May a president employ religious rhetoric, yet still govern in a way that is even-handed and just to all citizens? Some would quickly answer "no" on the grounds that the polity's sole national representative cannot deliver representative justice for all by recourse to particularistic religious language.
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