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7

Will CIC (Commander in Chief) give way to CIC (Clergy in Chief)?


I really enjoy the mailings I receive from The Interfaith Alliance, headed by Rev. C. Welton Gaddy. One of the most recent ones was about their tongue-in-cheek “Pastor-in-Chief” contest. From that e-mail (I can’t seem to find it online):

Gov. Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, paid visits to two Baptist churches in South Carolina on Sunday. At Gateway Baptist, in Irmo, SC, he preached a sermon that included his reminder to the assembled crowd that he wasn’t going to talk about politics.

“I’m not here today in a political capacity.”

Of course not! Gov. Huckabee just happened to be passing through Irmo, SC, (pop. 12,000+) on a Sunday morning. It’s just a coincidence that his visit happened seven weeks before the state’s First-in-the-South Republican primary election.

“Now, it’s hard to do what I do and not have the trappings of politics follow me around.”

It is! It’s hard to run for president and not bring along the campaign staffers and national media and sign-wavers and glad-handers.

“But I really, absolutely want you to understand that I’m here today to talk about Jesus and not to talk about me.”

Gov. Huckabee talked about Jesus, but his presence in the pulpit of a church sent a political message. Though his personal faith clearly is real and meaningful, the combination of Sunday services with a tightly managed campaign stop dishonors both religion and the political process. To claim that he can separate his ministry from his campaign less than two months before the primaries is to underestimate the common sense of both national observers and South Carolina voters.

Congratulations, Gov. Huckabee! You are The Interfaith Alliance’s First nominee for PASTOR-IN-CHIEF! *

* Contest winner will receive copies of The Interfaith Alliance’s “One Nation, Many Faiths” guides to religion and the election process, including our new video companion. Runners-up will win handmade cross-stitch samplers of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

More Pastor-in-Chief possibilities: Mitt Romney then and now. And from the left, Rev. Gaddy has concerns there too, one of the reasons I like Rev. Gaddy. I didn’t know about Tim Russert’s request for the Dem candidates to name their favorite Bible quotes during a September debate at Dartmouth until I read that article. Sigh.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:07 pm December 7th, 2007 in Campaigning, Civil Rights, Elections, Government, Politics, Religion, WH2008 

Comments

10 Responses to “Will CIC (Commander in Chief) give way to CIC (Clergy in Chief)?”

  1. 1 Anon on December 7th, 2007 6:22 pm

    From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article:

    On average, presidents from Franklin Roosevelt — the beginning of the modern presidency — to Carter mentioned God in less than half of their major addresses. In contrast, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (through year six) all did so in more than 90 percent of theirs. [...]

    Wherever we look, whatever we measure, our analysis points to the same conclusion: Today’s religious politics are far beyond anything Kennedy knew. Romney, therefore, struck a diametrically different posture in his speech.

    I haven’t given the matter much study, but this analysis strikes me as a little simplistic. Consider, for example, that FDR lead a 6-minute prayer on radio on D-Day (text and audio available here). A few seconds into the broadcast, the president said:

    [I]n this poignant hour, I ask [all listeners] to join with me in prayer:

    Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

    Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

    [...]

    I don’t think it very likely that any president in the foreseeable future would presume to lead the nation in prayer as FDR did. (OK, maybe a Pres. Huckabee would, but it would almost certainly generate outrage.)

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on December 8th, 2007 11:30 am

    Hmm – I don’t know, I’m not so sure. What makes you sure?

  3. 3 Anon on December 9th, 2007 5:31 pm

    Jill wrote: Hmm – I don’t know, I’m not so sure. What makes you sure?

    That’s a fair question–here’s my reasoning. I believe the most likely occasion on which a president could now (or in the future) lead the nation in prayer would be an instance of national trauma. The most recent instance of national trauma is, in my opinion, September 11, 2001. What happened then may provide some guidance about the future.

    Did the president then lead the nation in prayer in a manner comparable to FDR’s D-Day prayer? Not to my recollection, when I made my original post. Consequently, I concluded that a president would be unlikely to lead the nation in prayer in the foreseeable future.

    However, I did go back to check presidential statements from September, 2001 (available here). I found two instances in which there was more than passing reference to God or prayer. (I checked very quickly, so I may have missed other instances, but I don’t think so.)

    In his address to the nation on the evening of September 11, the president’s comments re prayer were limited to:

    Tonight I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.”

    I don’t think those words constitute “leading a prayer.”

    However, a portion of Pres. Bush’s remarks at National Cathedral on the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance (September 14, 2001) do sound like a prayer. Specifically:

    On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that he will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come.

    As we’ve been assured, neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth can separate us from God’s love.

    May he bless the souls of the departed. May he comfort our own. And may he always guide our country.

    God bless America.

    Could it reasonably be argued that Pres. Bush was leading the nation in prayer? I think it could, although the president doesn’t explicitly ask others to join with him. I will, however, note that the context (National Cathedral, National Day of Prayer and Remembrance) is somewhat different from the context (a radio address without an obvious connection to religion) of FDR’s prayer.

    Consequently, I’ll agree that my initial statement was probably too strong. Hence, I would amend my original opinion to read, “I don’t think it very likely that any president in the foreseeable future would presume to lead the nation in prayer except in the wake of a major national trauma, and probably only in certain contexts.” (Those qualifications sound a little wishy-washy to me, but so be it.)

  4. 4 Jill Miller Zimon on December 9th, 2007 8:44 pm

    Thanks for the follow up. On a scale of won’t happen until hell freezes over to absolutely certain? I’m going toward the certain side. I just feel that there’s a push for that. I’m not in favor of it, but I also can’t say where the point of it being offensive to me is either. I do remember Ken Blackwell talking about religion in some speech or context while running in 2006 that was over the line for me, I felt absolutely excluded and that was it for me really being able to stomach the possibility that he would be the Ohio gov.

  5. 5 Anon on December 9th, 2007 9:31 pm

    FWIW, the prospect of a Huckabee presidency is not one to which I’d look forward, for a variety of reasons. I rather liked this anonymous statement: “As an agnostic, Mitt Romney reminds me what I like about religion, Mike Huckabee reminds me what I don’t like about religion.”

  6. 6 Jill Miller Zimon on December 10th, 2007 12:01 am

    Thanks.

    I guess I just don’t understand why ANYONE would want or need their president to fulfill such a role. Religion is private – I want the clergy to speak with me, for me to feel sympatico with them, but I don’t require them to be able to lead a country. I still don’t really understand why people find such traits to be necessary or even relevant to a president. There are some elements that are similar – the ability to listen, to soothe, to provide comfort and strength etc. But how a president does those things – I don’t see it as coming through God. I see God as something for me to look to; then I look to the president for other things.

    Anyway – just late night ramblings. Thanks for reading and commenting.

  7. 7 Roland Hansen on December 12th, 2007 9:34 pm

    How about a President who says “Baruch Ashem” or “Baruch atah adonoi elohanu” or something similar? I wonder if anyone would take offense.

  8. 8 Jill Miller Zimon on December 12th, 2007 9:38 pm

    Adonai echad – that’s the one that I think Christians would have the most trouble with – even the ones who think Jews can be good Christians, since that echad thing kinda contradicts that trinity thing.

  9. 9 Roland Hansen on December 12th, 2007 9:43 pm

    One out of three ain’t so bad.

  10. 10 Jill Miller Zimon on December 13th, 2007 9:21 am

    Meatloaf liked two out of three better. :)

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