Presidents act religious even when they are not
Pop quiz: Which president "asserted frequently that God directed history, considered himself to be God's agent, and insisted that the United States would prosper only if its citizens sought divine guidance and followed biblical principles?"
Those who have followed the news only since last Tuesday, and even the more attentive, could be forgiven for guessing George W. Bush. In fact, the believer-in-chief referred to in that sentence from "Religion and the American Presidency" is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Progressive icon FDR, his un-Christian extramarital fling with Lucy Mercer notwithstanding, believed his New Deal and antifascist policies reflected religious teachings, privately advised a correspondent that prayer would "overcome every obstacle," and even interrupted Cabinet meetings to take phone calls about the New York Episcopal church where he served as senior warden.
"Religion and the American Presidency" contains essays about, and religious writings by, a baker's dozen presidents. Gastón Espinosa, religious studies professor at Claremont McKenna College, in Claremont, Calif., heads a gaggle of scholars who argue that, for all the contemporary Sturm und Drang over religion in public life, presidents have always invoked it to advance policies or, in the case of George Washington, to cement the newborn nation in unity.
This interesting book balances presidential professions of faith with acknowledgment of private sins and the objections of nonbelievers to explicit religious demonstrations in public life. The authors explain the origins of America's "civil religion," in which political leaders employ faith-based symbols and rhetoric to achieve their goal of the public good.
The chapters reinforce general conceptions as often as they upend them. No reader should be surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson revered Jesus' moral teachings while rejecting belief in his divinity or the Trinity, or that Jimmy Carter began the recent trend toward explicit presidential religiosity. (It is arresting, though, to be reminded that five of the last six presidents have claimed some kind of born-again or evangelical Christianity.)
Pat Robertson fans probably will take no comfort from the book, for it affirms church-state separation. Early on, the country busied itself with disestablishing the official churches set up in many of the colonies. And while Washington draped the presidency with Christian fabric - it is a Bible on which he and every president since have taken the oath of office - he went beyond preaching tolerance of all faiths to establishing liberty of all faiths: the notion that the state allow individuals to find God (or not) in their own way.
Cynics will sneer that even an atheist president probably would pander to believers in this most religious of nations in order to advance his agenda. Indeed, at least one author elsewhere has argued that Washington's farewell address, which placed religion among the "indispensable supports" to "political prosperity," had precisely that motive, since Alexander Hamilton, who co-wrote the address, believed in playing to the public's religious beliefs. Yet the abundance of original and often private sources cited by Espinosa and his colleagues suggests that presidents, regardless of their personal preferences, genuinely considered religion, properly used, a force for good.
It's worth remembering that one presidential wannabe, Howard Dean, when asked about the Roman Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, immediately expressed hope that the fallout from priestly perversion would not hobble the church's vital social works. Dean has his own limits of tolerance; he left his church over a disagreement about a bike path. But he recognized an indispensable support when he saw it.
Rich Barlow can be reached at barlow81@gmail.com. 
