Toward a Practical, Civic Piety: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, and The Race for National Priest. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 18.2

TOWARD A PRACTICAL, CIVIC PIETY: MITT ROMNEY,BARACK OBAMA, AND THE RACE FOR

NATIONAL PRIEST

RICHARD BENJAMIN CROSBY

In 2008, two of the leading presidential candidates emerged from controver-sial, outsider religious groups—Mormonism and the black church tradition.Dogged by ongoing questions from the media, each candidate produced ahigh-profıle public address. In this article, I argue that Mitt Romney’s “Faithin America” and Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” craft competingvisions for American civic piety. Drawing on recent literature in the area ofpractical piety, I read the speeches as evidence that civic piety may be morethan a subordinating, pragmatic agreement between church and state. It mayinstead be read as a spiritually substantive space of cultural identity forma-tion. I further conclude that the 2008 election reveals a contested piety in themidst of transition, and that this transition points in a relatively well-defıneddirection for American civil-religious culture.

“Anation with the soul of a church”: that is how British writer G. K.Chesterton famously characterized the United States in the earlytwentieth century. By making the observation, Chesterton did not

refer to the yet-to-emerge so-called “Religious Right,” or even to the coun-

RICHARD BENJAMIN CROSBY is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the English department at IowaState University. He wishes to thank Martin J. Medhurst and the anonymous reviewers for theirattention to this article. Their detailed and thoughtful feedback resulted in signifıcant improve-ments during the process. The author can be reached at [email protected].

© 2015 Michigan State University. All rights reserved. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 18, No. 2, 2015, pp. 301–330. ISSN 1094-8392.

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This work originally appeared in Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 18.2, Summer 2015, published by Michigan State University Press.

try’s many thriving religious denominations. He instead referred to the nation’spolitical religion. Like a number of other writers spanning the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries, Chesterton understood that one of the essential keys toAmerica’s social cohesion is the sacralization of its political mission. Callingthe nation’s founding documents a “creed,” Chesterton asserted that thepolitical principles of the United States are “set forth with dogmatic andeven theological lucidity.”1 Unlike other nations, which have traditionallyrelied on ethnic, historical, or religious commonalities to sustain unity, theUnited States incarnated its political principles as sacred truths under whichits citizens would unite and covenant as a people. This distinction may bewhat Philip Schaff had in mind when in 1855 he said that the many sects inthe United States, “fermenting together under new and peculiar condi-tions,” would produce “something wholly new.”2 One result of this sacralpolitics is the notion that American presidents serve also as “nationalpriests,” leaders who effectively interpret, communicate, and exemplify theright pieties with respect to America’s founding myths.3

Rhetorical studies encounter a unique opportunity with the 2008 presi-dential campaign. For the fırst time in history, one of the leading presiden-tial candidates from each party emerged from an unconventional—evensuspect—religious tradition.4 Each candidate was dogged with captiousquestions regarding his religious beliefs.5 Each saw his poll numbers drop asa result of the unwanted attention.6 Each felt the situation was onerousenough to merit a high-profıle speech.7 The two speeches have becomecontemporary touchstones for how a presidential candidate might grapplewith the demands of civic piety.8 As Nneka Ifeoma Ofulue puts it, a presi-dent and—by extension—a presidential candidate, must justify “his or herordination” to the nation’s high priesthood. He or she “is expected toembody and articulate national values.”9 This need is made more complexfor a candidate whose personal faith might run afoul of certain acceptablenational values, thus rendering him or her a civil religious apostate. The2008 campaign allows critics to observe two distinct interpretations of civicpiety from two would-be national priests. I argue that the two candidates inquestion, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, draw on competing interpreta-tions of American identity to craft their arguments, and that these differ-ences afford new insights into the nature of civic piety.

The article proceeds as follows. First, building on and complicatingRoderick Hart’s notion of civic piety, I argue that a reimagined practical

302 RHETORIC & PUBLIC AFFAIRS


civic piety offers an approach to civil religious rhetoric that is both moregenerous and more accurate. This perspective invests civic piety with thespiritual substance found in what Robert Bellah famously calls the Ameri-can Civil Religion, but without claims to a coherent theological system.Second, I test my claims through a close analogue analysis of Mitt Romney’s“Faith in America” and Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union,” therespective 2008 apologias through which the candidates make their cases tovoters.10 I read the two speeches as opposing pieties, each designed to orientthe nation in radically different ways, one toward a piety of abstract obedi-ence (“Faith in America”) the other toward a piety of empathic experience(“A More Perfect Union”). I conclude that civic piety is more than apragmatic, subordinating agreement between the state and private faithgroups. It may instead be read as a discursive space within which a cultureworks out its own spirituality. I further conclude that the 2008 electionreveals a contested piety in the midst of transition, and that this transitionpoints in a relatively well-defıned direction.

CIVIC PIETY

As far back as Plato’s Laws, and certainly since Augustine’s City of God,philosophers have devoted considerable reflection to the question of God’srelationship to the nation-state.11 The American incarnation of this rela-tionship, according to Bellah, is uniquely robust. Having been conceivedand developed in the fecund rhetorical atmosphere of the revolutionaryUnited States, American civic culture produced “dogmas” that were “part ofthe cultural climate of the late eighteenth century,” a climate that “played aconstitutive role in the thought of the early American statesmen.”12 Bellahadds that what emerged from this early period was “a collection of beliefs,symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things,” which in turn becamethe bedrock of America’s spiritual identity.13 So sacralized, the nation andits Founders did not merely tokenize God’s role in the American imagina-tion, they essentialized an entire belief system through which Americanpolitical identity took on a spiritual transcendence. Americans interpretedthemselves as belonging to a chosen nation inhabiting a chosen land, whichGod would use to bless the whole world. In this way, the nation’s politicalinterests are often loaded with the import of a religious worldview. Indeed,Bellah argues that the United States has created a religion, fully formed, that

TOWARD A PRACTICAL, CIVIC PIETY 303


is “genuinely American and genuinely new. It has its own martyrs, its ownsacred events and sacred places, its own solemn rituals and symbols.”14

For some critics, however, the notion that there is an authentic religion atthe heart of American consciousness pushes too far. Roderick Hart, forinstance, recognizes a certain rhetoric of American civil religion, but heobjects to the assumption that such a religion authentically exists. For Hart,the chimera of a civil religion emerges from and responds to the demands ofwhat he calls civic piety, an unoffıcial behavioral “contract” negotiatedbetween the state and private faith groups. The contract allows that the statewill draw on the rhetorical resources of religion to further its own interests,but by virtue of its “coercive power” the state may prevent private religionfrom dictating or otherwise undermining state interests.15 The contractdoes not deny the obvious rhetorical leverage that a civil religion affordspolitical leaders, but the rhetoric of civil religion does not, according to Hart,entail the presence of an actual religion. While American nationalismoccasionally serves some of the minor functions of authentic religion, Hartconcludes that, “at best, the American civil religion is a political version ofUnitarianism.”16

Hart’s critique hinges on the role rhetoric plays in the maintenance of adiverse, far-flung democracy. For Hart, a rhetorician by training, discourseis a means to an end in an exigent situation. From the early republic on,national leaders have employed certain tropes and appeals that suggest akind of spiritual unity, but such communications owe themselves to polit-ical interests, not theological ideals. During the revolutionary period andthe subsequent Constitutional Convention—and earlier, as in the case ofJohn Winthrop and the early Puritans—leaders established a pattern ofappealing to the divine as a means of encouraging social unity, especially intimes of crisis. Such a rhetoric is designed, in the words of Peter Berger, tomake its audience “believe that, in acting out the institutional programs thathave been imposed upon them, they are but realizing the deepest aspirationsof their own being and putting themselves in harmony with the fundamen-tal order of the universe.”17 So according to Hart and Berger, the substancebehind the rhetoric of our civil religion is not a theological system or creedbut the necessary guiles of political leadership.

In supporting his argument, Hart notes that Americans have not allowedany references to God in the one purely legal document from the foundingera, the Constitution. They have also nurtured a powerful aversion to oaths,



state religions, and compulsory prayer.18 For Hart, these facts demonstratethat something like an American civil religion exists only as part of theunspoken contract that is the essential bedrock of civic piety. Civil religiousrhetoric deflects attention away from the fact that the contract neutersorganized religion’s ability to impact the state. As long as Americans canspeak the language of a national religion, they overlook their own complic-ity in the state’s control over their private religious life. Martin J. Medhurstcharacterizes Hart’s view thus: “Religion’s role is symbolic and rhetoricalonly, and when it dares to speak its name outside of these carefully circum-scribed boundaries, it is to be met with disdain, umbrage, and, ultimately,rejection.”19 So Hart clearly sees a role for private religion in the state, butthis role is valenced rather cynically.

In this article, I accept Hart’s premise, but I challenge his implications.The argument that the American civil religion does not qualify as anauthentic religion is defensible, but the notion that in its place we have littlemore than a state-sponsored behavioral contract overlooks piety’s inherentspiritual potential. In granting that he has “not drawn on the better tenden-cies of human kind,” Hart presumes mutual distrust between state andchurch. The result is a kind of détente allowing each party to thrive but onlyunder certain limiting conditions, especially for religion. Hence, the con-tract metaphor entails other similarly businesslike terms, such as “deal” and“transaction,” to describe the agreement between state and church.20 Nev-ertheless, hidden within Hart’s argument is a very substantive theory aboutthe generative power of civil religious rhetoric. Ofulue points out that Hart’sdiscussion “foregrounds the religio-symbolic dimension of the Presidency,”a dimension that links “faith and national identity.”21 In its priestly role,presidential rhetoric functions to “enable” religio-symbolic elements thatwould otherwise have little purchase in the broader culture. Our “nationalself-conception” depends on the extent to which faith informs the notion ofan “American people.”22 In other words, there are transcendent meaningsbehind the language of faith, and faith may work just as hard to constraingovernment as government works to constrain faith. As I will show, Rom-ney’s and Obama’s respective rhetorics promote and are shaped by religiousworldviews. More than merely using generic religious topoi as a means toalign themselves with Hart’s contract of civic piety, they attempt to directthe nation’s spiritual identity in highly particular, theologically motivatedways. While this evidence in no way proves the existence of a coherent and



substantial civil religion, it does suggest something more is at work than adetached political pragmatism.

PRACTICAL PIETY

The sense that Hart may not account for the richness of his own theoryemerges from a complete reading of his argument. On the one hand, herepeatedly acknowledges the generative power of civil-religious rhetoric,noting, for example, its ability to conceive of a “national ethos grander thanthose which ordinary Americans could articulate for themselves.”23 Yet, healso insists that the ultimate purpose of such a rhetoric is to keep thechurch-state relationship from becoming “a nagging, national problem.”24

The literature from scholars of religion, however, rarely burdens piety withsuch a limiting role. The Oxford English Dictionary’s primary defınitionstates that piety is “reverence and obedience to God (or to the gods);devotion to religious duties and observances; godliness, devoutness.”25 Inthis sense, piety is a meaningful expression of the substance of faith. Inshort, it is a praxis that emerges from authentic belief.

This view of piety has been developed by recent scholarship withinreligious and cultural studies. Christian theologian Timothy F. Sedgewick,for example, understands “faith as practical piety, as a way of life that isgiven from within the circle of faith, where the warrants for faith are itstransformative power and its correspondence to tradition.”26 Such a pietyprivileges the concrete practice of the individual, whose personal convictionis an ongoing “‘affective and pragmatic reorientation or conversion’ ratherthan a matter of knowledge about the nature of things.”27 So whereas Hartsees civic piety as emerging from the pragmatics of political power, “prac-tical” piety is a genuine, embodied expression of faith. Also, a practical pietyis not a philosophy or an ideology, whole and fully formed as a system ofcreeds and rites; it is instead a “way of life” from which “faith is given.”28

This phrase “way of life” encapsulates the essential distinction between adoctrinal belief and a religiously inspired social praxis, or between theolog-ical conviction and practical piety. Jewish theologian Will Herberg’s com-prehensive theory of an “American Way of Life” is in many respects theprecursor to Bellah’s notion of a civil religion. Herberg’s book Protestant-Catholic-Jew references an American “common faith,” or a “democraticfaith,” that “constitutes the ‘common religion’ of American society.”29 This



religion, he adds, is one of “deeds, not creeds,” meaning its values aregrounded in the effıcacy of individual and social action.30 Above all, it is akind of idealism that drapes its quotidian practices in the robes of “higher”virtue.31 Thus, capitalism and representative government are practicalmeans to transcendent ends; they are part of a spiritually vitalized “neworder of things.”32 The key difference between Herberg and Hart is a matterof interpretation. Herberg identifıes a “common religion,” but what heappears to describe is a piety, in the practical sense, a way of social living thatemerges from religious convictions.

Sedgewick argues that Anglicanism is an example of how such pietyworks. Noting the sixteenth-century shift from a single, univocal statereligion to an ongoing contest between Anglicans and Roman Catholics,Sedgewick observes piety emerge from the conflict, presenting itself as theway a nation of more than one church expresses its common spirituality.“England instead developed a distinctive tradition in which faith was iden-tifıed more with faithful worship that bound a people together in holylife.”33 Practical piety promoted the expression of convictions “more interms of relationships than as matters of belief about God, Jesus Christ, andthe Holy Spirit.”34 Such a piety is “corporate” in nature, which is to say, “it isalways a life formed in community in order to become a holy people.”35

What sets this version of piety apart from Hart’s is its orientation to atranscendent vision. It is not merely a set of civic rules for getting along, letalone a mechanism for safeguarding the state’s coercive power. It is anauthentically spiritual impulse designed to sanctify the national commu-nity. In short, practical piety can offer a third way for understanding civilreligious rhetoric. It does not have to reflect a fully formed religious system,nor must it be a guise to safeguard state power, but it may be a space withinwhich a diverse culture crafts its spiritual identity and social commitments.

By way of coming to a defınition, then, I propose that a practical, civicpiety is 1) an authentic expression of religious commitment, 2) directedtoward and understood in terms of social relationships, 3) embodied ineveryday practice, and 4) defınitive and even transformative of a culture’sway of life. This defınition underscores also what a practical, civic piety isnot. A practical, civic piety is not a way of understanding and coming closerto God. Its object is a transcendent community, or culture. This distinctionmay be what Herberg had in mind when he argued such discourse promotesan “American’s vision of America.”36 As a result, an effectively practical



civic piety will be reflective of and responsive to the culture within which itfınds traction. A civic piety that is out of step with the social zeitgeist willhave little purchase. This point may be the most critical with respect to thesocial implications of civic piety. What we have with American patriotism,for example, is not a clearly delineated set of dogmas, but we do have a fairlyclear set of expectations regarding the public impact of certain ways ofliving. Americans do not tend to be concerned about a candidate’s beliefsbecause they feel those beliefs are heretical. Indeed, most Americans wouldgladly defend a candidate’s right to believe whatever he or she wants tobelieve. The concern, rather, is with how such heretical beliefs might impactthe candidate’s ability to exercise practical leadership in a culture attuned tocertain norms. This difference is critical. Civil religion may be about beliefs,but civic piety is about public impacts. It must obtain within certain societalparameters.

Given the theoretical richness that a practical piety adds to Hart’s initialargument, scholars can better understand what is going on in 2008. Criticsmay gain more insight by interpreting the speeches as competing visions ofAmerican piety, each differently oriented to the nation’s history, each vyingfor cultural supremacy, each coming from a place of authentic spiritualconviction. As the analysis will show, the respective pieties outlined by thetwo candidates appear to draw from the faith orientations of the corre-sponding speakers. This point is signifıcant, because it communicates pi-ety’s interpretive richness—as well as its complaisance—as a coveted toolfor realizing a culture’s transcendent self-image. What we see with the 2008speeches are two rhetors drawing on their own convictions to influence thenation’s spiritual identity.

CONTEXT: THE FUNDAMENTALIST VERSUS THE LIBERATIONIST

Given only a few months apart during the same presidential campaign,“Faith in America” and “A More Perfect Union” demonstrate profoundcontextual similarities. Both orators speak in response to public concernsabout their respective religious affıliations and how those affıliations mightimpact their approach to presiding over the nation. This exigency alonemerits attention, because in each case the orator must defend himselfagainst the implication that he is hiding some nefarious religious ideology.Both orators must therefore address their memberships in their respective



churches and, while not disclaiming their faith, distance themselves from anyhistory of their faith that would run afoul of mainstream American sensibilities.Both orators, in short, fınd themselves walking a rhetorical tightrope betweenthe demands of their faith and the demands of their politics.

ROMNEY THE FUNDAMENTALIST

The implied concern with Romney is that his Mormon faith representssomething too strange for Americans to accommodate. Its esoteric doc-trines and historical claims have made it a thing of discomfort and derisionfor many voters. Modern Mormonism has also embraced a highly central-ized, hierarchical, conservative culture, based partly in open weekly worshipservices but partly also in closed, highly ritualized temple ceremonies thathave become a source of curiosity and, for some, suspicion. As Medhurstpoints out, exclusionary religious practices are partly to blame forMormonism’s reputation as a “separatist, secretive, and discriminatory”institution.37 It is not entirely surprising, then, that at the time ofRomney’s address nearly a quarter of Americans polled expressed con-cern with Mormonism, and that number increased substantially whenonly Evangelicals were polled.38 As I have pointed out elsewhere, Protes-tantism has historically presumed to hold a de facto religious hegemony onAmerican culture and politics. So the expansion of traditions like Mormon-ism represents not only a theological heresy but also a political threat.39

Romney felt he needed to address these concerns, lest he forfeit the nomi-nation to a more religiously mainstream candidate, like the charismaticSouthern Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, who was quickly moving up inprimary polls.40

Finally, Mormonism’s rigid structures of culture and doctrine haveresulted in what is effectively a fundamentalist worldview, meaning thechurch affırms irreducible truths and members are expected to conformthemselves to those truths. If members fınd themselves to be in disagree-ment with the essential claims of the church, they must make effortsthrough prayer and study to close the gap. While within Mormonism thereare robust intellectual movements that openly complicate and reinterprettheology, and while the offıcial church shows evidence of a more open andconciliatory approach to such movements, the crux of mainstream Mor-



mon identity is to be found in what it calls Priesthood Correlation, anoffıcial effort by the church to align its far-flung stakes and wards (diocesesand parishes) under a system of universal administrative practice and strictdoctrinal conformity. When members are found to be too far outside of thissystem of practice and belief, they begin to lose the privileges of fellowship,such as partaking of the sacrament, attending the temple, or participating inessential rites and ordinances. In extreme cases of “apostasy,” excommuni-cation is used as a disciplinary measure.41

Note that I am using the term “fundamentalism” in its broadest philo-sophical sense, not as a reference to the early twentieth-century Protestantmovement to assert the Bible’s literality and inerrancy. When I refer toMormonism’s fundamentalist tendencies and even to Romney’s pious fun-damentalism, I mean to imply “strict adherence to any set of basic ideas orprinciples.”42 This type of fundamentalism suggests simply a rigid orienta-tion to a particular ideology, a praxis-driven way of committing to thedoctrines and assumptions of a given belief system. The goal of this brand offundamentalism is to resist relativistic interpretations of the given ideolo-gy’s boundaries and assumptions. It wants to simplify and circumscribebelief so as to render external obedience to that belief more observable.Nevertheless, it is also worth noting that Romney’s target audience com-prises largely Protestant, evangelical sectarians, a group historically influ-enced by the culture of Christian Fundamentalism. So I grant that Romney’sadoption of fundamentalist overtones in his own speech may also partly bea reflection of this target group. The main point, which will be borne out inthe textual analysis, is that Romney promotes a particular way of living one’spolitical beliefs in accordance with historically inerrant assumptions aboutthe nation’s founding, and this “way of living” relies on demonstrablemarkers of obedience to abstract principles. Hence my description: Romneythe fundamentalist.

OBAMA THE LIBERATIONIST

Most reactions to the Obama speech, including academic responses such asRobert Terrill’s in the Quarterly Journal of Speech and Susanna Dilliplane’sin this journal, correctly characterize the speech as a statement on race, andthey make appropriate reference to the black church culture that is bound



up in the speech’s controversial context.43 David Frank’s piece, also pub-lished in this journal, perhaps goes furthest to highlight the essential religi-osity of the speech.44 I want to elaborate on the notion that the exigency outof which the speech was born, while primarily about issues related to race, isbound up with Obama’s vision of faith. Conservatives were not scandalizedto such heights because Obama happened to have a racist friend with somechallenging views on American history. The conservative indignationflowed from the fact that Jeremiah Wright was Obama’s religious leader, aspiritual mentor whose messages are presumed to speak to the soul of hisfollowers and whose political views emerge from a liberation theology thatsacralizes political activism, openly confronts elites, and calls for the repar-ative redistribution of wealth. Obama’s address, then, comprises a sweepingvision of American spirituality, at the core of which is the nation’s troubledhistory of racial tension.45

Stephen Mansfıeld makes this point in his book The Faith of BarackObama. Mansfıeld notes that “A More Perfect Union” bears striking philo-sophical similarities to the homilies of Jeremiah Wright at Trinity Church.46

Mansfıeld characterizes Obama as an essentially religious person whose“theology of politics” is a natural outgrowth of his own spiritual experiencesand interpretations,47 and whose “understanding of what he would do oncehe came to power” was shaped by his “worldview of . . . faith.”48 Mansfıeldargues that Obama’s politics, including those expressed in his “A MorePerfect Union” address, and his personal religious experience are made ofthe same stuff and, more tellingly, that one is the consequence of the other:“Obama roots his political Liberalism in a theological worldview, and he willcall others to do the same.”49 To assume that Mansfıeld is correct, then,means at the very least the racial elements of “A More Perfect Union”cannot be separated from Obama’s essential theological bedrock.

To be sure, liberation theology has lost much of its cohesive identity as anorganized intellectual movement within the Catholic Church during the1960s and 1970s. However, vital traces of its philosophy can be foundthroughout the world of Christian theology, and its relationship to theAmerican black church tradition remains strong—even defınitive. Libera-tion theology is, simply put, the gospel through the eyes of marginalized anddisempowered populations. It primarily concerns itself with unjust socio-economic conditions by interpreting “Christian faith out of the suffering,struggle, and hope of the poor.”50 The poor and the oppressed, after all,



represent the “majority of the human family.”51 Gustavo Guitierrez, argu-ably liberation theology’s intellectual founder, points out that “God prefersthose who are ‘insignifıcant,’ ‘marginalized,’ ‘unimportant,’ ‘needy,’ ‘de-spised,’ and ‘defenseless.’”52 Philip Berryman cites Latin American realitiesin particular, noting, “events in the church and in society as a whole areintertwined.”53 One comes to a more authentic faith when one enacts theGospel through the material experiences and perspectives of strugglingindividuals and groups. Pious practices are developed from—not abstractlyimposed upon—such people.

So liberation theology presents a uniquely good model of how practicalpiety works. It draws its motivations from a core religious system equippedwith founding myths, theologies, doctrines, laws, and ordinances, but itfınds its raison d’être in the social relationships and material practices ofcommunities. Robert McAfee Brown points out that the advent of liberationtheology coincided with a Latin American Catholic push to involve the laityin policy making, rather than to shunt them aside as “passive recipients ofthe sacraments.”54 Brown goes on to argue that this reframing of the laitywill lead to “a discovery of one another.” He writes: “And so individuals fındone another, share their sense of isolation and need for empower-ment . . . and almost before one notices, the assorted individuals have be-come a ‘community.’”55 Brown also explains liberation theology as apractice of criticizing one’s own premises and taking on the premise ofa competing perspective. This “new way of being in the church” promotes “abelief that change was mandated by the gospel, . . . and that those within thechurch could, and should, be enlisted in the process of transformation notonly of individuals but of social structures as well.”56 Accordingly, libera-tion theology reads its founding document, the Bible, not as a static set oflaws but as a “charter for change.”57 “[Readers of the Bible] do not stop at thetext-in-itself or the facts related by the text,” writes Dutch priest CarlosMesters. “But these become a base and a starting point for discovering a deepermeaning which has to do with their own lives and the situation in which theylive.”58 Obama, as the analysis below will reveal, sees the Constitution in asimilar light. It is a call to progress toward greater justice, and its principlesare best understood in light of one’s own experience within a community.

One may ask how we are to distinguish the principles of liberationtheology from those of secular, progressive politics. That is, how does oneknow Obama is actually drawing on a theological paradigm rather than



simply promoting progressive public policy? Liberation theology, likeObama’s politics as expressed in this address, freights public policy with aparticular brand of religious practice. Stephen Howard Browne has pointedout the large number of theological themes and scriptural references inObama’s address, all designed around an ethic of social empathy, service,and ultimately salvation.59 Still, the presence of religious allusions does notnecessarily entail a truly religious speech. So more to the point, if we are toaccept that Obama was a member of Wright’s church in good standing, andthat his relationship with Wright was as influential as Obama himselfdescribes, and if Mansfıeld’s arguments are sound, then the inference be-comes more clear: Obama’s politics are at some level informed by Wright’sbrand of theology. Whether it was progressive politics that led Obama toWright’s church or it was Wright’s church that led Obama to progressivepolitics is quite beside the point. At some point in Obama’s personal history,he synthesized the two into a vision of civic piety, and “A More PerfectUnion” is an intelligible expression of this synthesis. Hence my description:Obama the liberationist.

TEXT: PERFECT VERSUS MORE PERFECT

The different orientations to piety are evident at the outset. Romney’stitle, “Faith in America,” implies an America that is a universally ac-cepted principle. The prepositional structure directs our faith into aterminus. When we have faith “in” something, we ascribe to thatsomething attributes that are largely fıxed, and, in the case of religion, wetry to shape ourselves to it. Throughout his address, Romney impliesthat the solution to problems, if problems exist, is to renew our faithin the thing itself. America is not necessarily a thing that requires greaterrefınement or improvement, but our relationship to it—our faith init—might. So the essence of Romney’s view is that America was con-ceived in original virtues, and we must return to those virtues. ForObama, America as a concept is a work in progress. Hence, his title “AMore Perfect Union,” taken from the fırst clause of the Constitution,calls not for the restoration of a virtuous past but for progressiverefınement. Though Obama openly and repeatedly rejects Wright’scomments about the country, his view is consistent with black liberationtheology’s notion that America is not a fıxed object of faith on which we



can continually lean. It is an idea we are called to shape through lived experi-ence. America was conceived in what Obama calls the “original sin of slavery,”a failure from which we must continuously work to repent. So while Romneyemphasizes “America” as a pristine idea with abstract power to motivate faith,Obama emphasizes “Union,” a word that implies collaborative action towardsome future, deliberately ambiguous goal.60

These different orientations are evident throughout the two speeches.Early in his address, Romney establishes a pattern of argument that enforcesand reinforces an approach to American piety based in fıdelity to estab-lished truths. For instance, Romney introduces his speech with this simplepreview: “Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, somewonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate’sreligion that are appropriate. I believe there are. And I’ll answer themtoday.”61 In other words, Romney’s approach reflects his title. There is an“appropriate” and stable standard that we can accept as a “given” andagainst which candidates may be measured. America’s “grand tradition ofreligious tolerance” is a truth that we either accept or do not accept. For thisreason, Romney offers only as much autobiographical information as willsubstantiate his claim that he accepts the given truth. As the pattern unfolds,Romney punctuates these substantiations with pledges to remain true to thestandards in place. For example, immediately following Romney’s previewin paragraph 7, he points out that

A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejectedbecause of his faith. Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, orany other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidentialdecisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, andit ends where the affairs of the nation begin.

As Governor, I tried to do the right as best I knew it, serving the law andanswering to the Constitution. I did not confuse the particular teachings ofmy church with the obligations of the offıce and of the Constitution—and ofcourse, I would not do so as President. I will put no doctrine of any churchabove the plain duties of the offıce and the sovereign authority of the law.62

Romney establishes certain standards for evaluation of a candidate’s reli-gion: a person should be neither elected nor rejected because of his religiousfaith, implying it is wrong either to govern or to vote based on religious



affıliation. He then provides evidence for his past conformance to thosestandards: his tenure as governor. Finally, he pledges ongoing fıdelity to thestandards: “I will not do so as president.” Job done. It is a largely abstract,methodical approach designed to reassure his audience that the fundamen-tal order of things remains in place, and that he will ensure its fıxedness.There is a neatness to Romney’s piety. Social action with respect to faith is amatter of discretion and obedience to established truths and practices.There are clear standards. Based on the evidence, he conforms to thestandards, and he pledges to continue to do so. Voters should need to knowlittle else of him.

Now consider the way Obama frames his address:

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Two hundred andtwenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of mengathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbableexperiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars, statesmen and patriots whohad traveled across the ocean to escape tyranny and persecution fınally madereal their Declaration of Independence at a Philadelphia convention thatlasted through the spring of 1787. The document they produced was eventu-ally signed, but ultimately unfınished.63

Obama begins not with a founding truth against which he or anyone else shouldbe evaluated but with a founding proposition, an elusive idea we are collectivelycalled to pursue. Not surprisingly he does not come out of the gate withpromises to conform to a truth that exists a priori. He begins by quoting anambiguous clause in the Constitution’s preamble. Note further that he does notfınish quoting the full sentence. He hovers over the parenthetical “in order toform a more perfect union,” as if to emphasize the complexity and flux of theidea. The verb “form” and the adverb “more” make his case. There is a standardto which we should aspire, and it is to be realized in the future through thecollective, transformational efforts of a committed “people.” Ours is not aproject of restoring the past, but of transforming the future.

The candidates’ divergent orientations to the past reveal systemic differ-ences in the way they conceive of the speaker’s agency. Obama begins thespeech by frankly identifying the disconnect between the promise of thenation’s founding documents and the reality of the lived experience of largeswaths of the American population. He contextualizes this disconnect by



arguing that the Founders viewed liberty as a potentiality, a promise thatwent unfulfılled even though it lay embedded within the civil creed. Con-sider, for example, paragraphs 3–5 of the address:

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded withinour Constitution—a Constitution that had at [its] very core the ideal of equalcitizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty andjustice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time. . . .

What would be needed were Americans in successive generations whowere willing to do their part—through protests and struggles, on the streetsand in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always atgreat risk—to narrow the gap between the promise of our ideals and thereality of their time.

This was the task that we set forth at the beginning of this presidentialcampaign: to continue the long march of those who came before us, a marchfor a more just, more equal, more free, more caring, and more prosperousAmerica.

Obama sees history as a troubled starting point from which a long andongoing march toward American ideals begins to unfold. His word choicerepeatedly connotes the past as a heavy, resistant grip from which we canonly escape by virtue of a “long march” marked by “struggles” and “pro-tests” over “successive generations.” Obama describes a past that wouldkeep the promise of liberty abstract and unfulfılled. Note also that inparagraph 3 he sees the Constitution the same way a liberationist theologianmight see the Bible. It is a charter for change and progress that believers arecalled to realize through disciplined resistance over time.

The parallelisms in paragraph 4 reinforce the profound diffıculty of theongoing project. With each prepositional phrase in the list (“through pro-tests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through civil war andcivil disobedience, and always at great risk”) the heaviness of the effortgrows. Prepositions like “on” and “in” act like textual bricks adding to thealready profound burden of “a long march,” until the anaphoric, right-branching crescendo in paragraph 5 urges the reader forward into a futurethat is “more just, more equal, more free, more caring, and more prosper-ous.” The series of modifıers, each introduced with the word “more,”behaves like steps in a forward-looking, repetitive march.



The exigency about which Obama is so concerned, it should be recalled,is the tendency among Americans to forget too quickly and to judge tooharshly when they encounter difference. He uses the parenthetical in para-graph 3 to interrupt the reader, to slow the reader down—to weigh herdown, as it were—then guide her cautiously back onto a path that can onlybe trod deliberately and with effort into a future that is not pure andabsolute, but better. As he puts it, the goal is simply to “narrow the gap”between right and wrong. So whereas a fundamentalist might see the marchout of the past as evidence of errant transgression and a need to restorehistorical behaviors, the liberationist sees the march as a means to break freetoward something more perfect.

Unlike Romney, Obama is not given over to pledges. It would not beconsistent for him merely to condemn Reverend Wright’s controversialcomments. Obama must also situate those comments within the historicalnarrative of American experience. Calling on Americans not to judgeWright or himself by applying abstract, subjective standards to their rela-tionship, Obama instead invites his audience to consider the relationshipaccording to his experience of the relationship itself. “As imperfect as hemay be, he has been like family to me. . . . He contains within him thecontradictions—the good and the bad—of the community that he hasserved diligently for so many years. . . . These people are part of me. Andthey are part of America.”64 In this last sentence Obama performs two subtlerhetorical moves. The implication is that America cannot be understoodexcept by reference to the concrete experiences and perspectives of itspeople. Using a paratactic compound structure, he places himself andAmerica in the same object position. His understanding of America flowsfrom his understanding of himself, and his understanding of himself flowsfrom his interpretation of his own experience. He makes this strategyexplicit when he declares in paragraph 5 that his “belief” in the union“comes from my own story.” Not surprisingly, Obama’s address is twice aslong as Romney’s (4,967 words vs. 2,524 words).

If Obama’s understanding of America flows from his understanding ofhimself, Romney’s understanding of himself flows from his understandingof America. To put it another way, in Romney’s view, the idea of America isnot to be tested against the experience of its people; its people are to be testedagainst the idea of America. It follows, then, that the idea of America mustbe stable and without challenge. By framing his speech as a response to



questions, the answers to which are to be judged according to the standardsset by the Founders and their foundational truths, Romney has little use forstories. As I have pointed out, Romney repeatedly structures his commentsby affırming a historical truth and offering evidence of his conformity to it.I mentioned above his early statement in which he presents as a “given”America’s “grand tradition of religious tolerance.” Forget for the momentthat such an assumption is historically problematic.65 In Romney’s inter-pretation, the tradition exists in its perfection even if citizens have tempo-rarily diverged from it. Romney will, later in the speech, acknowledge somehistory of religious intolerance in America, but he does so only as a means ofdismissing the intolerance as a passing transgression of the real, true Amer-ican tradition, the sort of exception that proves the rule. More and more, itbecomes evident that where Obama promotes a piety grounded in individ-ual experience, Romney promotes a piety based on obedience.

Romney employs this principle/proof/pledge approach throughout theaddress. In paragraph 10, for instance, he affırms Lincoln’s notion of a“political religion,” then immediately follows it with a promise that “If I’mfortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no onegroup, no one cause, and no one interest.” In paragraph 19, he affırms thatthe “Founders” acknowledged the “Creator,” then pledges not to “separateus from ‘the God who gave us liberty.’” In paragraph 24, he affırms certain“American values” as a “moral heritage,” then he provides evidence of howthese values are reflected in his own upbringing and, now, in his ownmarriage. Here again, though there is a clear potential for interesting auto-biographical narratives, he does not offer descriptions from his life; hesimply affırms principles, makes statements of evidence—usually one totwo sentences in length, occasionally provides reinforcing material, andoften concludes with a pledge, such as the one with which he punctuatesparagraph 24: “these convictions will indeed inform my presidency.”

Consider, Romney and Obama use roughly the same number of personalpronouns. Romney uses “I” 33 times; Obama uses “I” 35 times, despitesaying twice the number of words overall. Romney uses “my” 27 times;Obama uses “my” 31 times. The one major disparity is in the use of theobjective pronoun, “me,” which Romney uses only once and Obama usesnine times. Taken at face value, such numbers might suggest the twocandidates speak of themselves with equal frequency, perhaps even thatObama speaks of himself less, if one were to consider the pronouns’ per-



centage of use per paragraph. But a closer look reveals that the speakers’ useof personal pronouns is very different in context. Twenty-four of Obama’s35 “I” statements are deployed as part of a personal narrative, or the sharingof some anecdote. For instance, from paragraph 6: “I was raised with thehelp of a white grandfather”; or paragraph 9: “Did I know him [Rev. Wright]to be an occasionally fıerce critic of American domestic and foreign policy?Of course.”

Romney uses the word “I” as part of a personal narrative or anecdote onlyfour out of 33 times, whereas he employs the pronoun a minimum of 23times as part of a pledge or declaration of personal conviction (e.g., I“do”/“do not,” “will/will not”; I “believe,” “wish,” “endeavor,” “think,” etc.).A typical statement from Romney comes in paragraph 15: “I believe thatevery faith I’ve encountered draws its adherents closer to God.” Another,from paragraph 19: “ . . . but I will not separate us from the God who gave usliberty.” In short, a reading of context surrounding the personal pronounreveals that Romney bares himself through (one might also say he concealshimself within) declarations of allegiance or belief in relation to abstractstandards, such as “liberty” and “faith.” Moderate conservatives like JoeScarborough and David Brooks openly suspected Romney of lacking fıxedpolitical convictions during the 2012 campaign. As Scarborough opined: “Idon’t think he has an ideological bone in his body.”66 Nevertheless, the textsuggests Romney is intent on situating himself in conformity to a static setof civic-pious assumptions.

In spite of its lack of personal narrative or historical nuance, Romney’sspeech manages an admirable performance, even, at times, an eloquence.But to appreciate it, one must understand the speech’s orientation. InRomney’s view, we do not need a messy critique of allegiances and identitiesas part of some storytelling exercise in complex historical understanding—an exercise, presumably, that will lead only to a vague mutual tolerance ofeach other’s personal neuroses, ultimately arriving nowhere together.Though he could share ample personal experiences regarding his own faithexperience, and though he could discuss the rich, complex history of Mor-monism in the United States, he abstains. The coolness of Romney’s visionhearkens to a simple, conservative premise: the people are designed toanswer to the nation and its inherent virtues. What we need is practicaldiscretion in keeping with our well-established, founding principles, and wemust pledge to apply this discretion. As conservative theorist Roger Scruton



observes: “To put it briefly, conservatism arises directly from the sense thatone belongs to some continuing, and pre-existing social order, and that thisfact is all-important in determining what to do.”67 The result is predictable;individuals and groups (Romney vaguely refers to them as “some” inparagraph 6) who do not meet the established criteria of the order are notembraced as part of the complex American experience, but they are re-garded as transgressors who prove the rule, and who ought to be called backinto conformity.68

DISCUSSION

I have considered Mitt Romney’s “Faith in America” and Barack Obama’s“A More Perfect Union” as two different interpretations of American civicpiety. Far from serving as cynical, boilerplate concessions to state power, thespeeches represent spiritually robust, competing visions of a practical,American civic piety. I also hope to have shown that the two speeches arenot different in kind but in perspective. They both offer visions of a morevirtuous nation, and they both draw defınitively on the nation’s foundinghistory, but they are very differently oriented to that history. In light of thepremises I established in the literature review and the observations I madeduring the analysis, I offer three interrelated conclusions for discussion: 1)that civic piety need not be portrayed as a capitulation to the demands ofstate power but, instead, it may be read as a spiritually substantive space ofcultural identity formation; 2) that the 2008 election reveals a contestedcivic piety in the midst of a conspicuous transition; and 3) that Americancivic piety seems be headed in a relatively well-defıned, new direction.

My fırst claim, that civic piety may be read as a spiritually substantiveforce, relies on a reversal of certain premises. Whereas Hart argues that thenation’s secular interests constrain and shape the scope of private faith,exploiting it for decidedly nonreligious objectives, I have argued that privatefaith may be vitalized through the nation’s political infrastructure. Thespeeches analyzed above reveal two speakers bringing religious motivationsto bear on the landscape of national politics, suggesting the nation’s reli-gions have an interest in shaping the state as much or more than the state hasan interest in shaping the nation’s religions. The Romney and Obamaspeeches analyzed here represent thoughtful efforts on the part of thecandidates to reflect and shape American piety according to comparatively



distinct faith orientations. This does not entail the presence of a fully formedand functioning American civil religion, but it does indicate that Americancivic piety may come from a place of authentic religious motivation.

In his critical response to Hart, Ronald Lee discusses the case of MartinLuther King Jr. As Lee points out, “King appealed to the transcendent in aserious way and yet was within the bounds of the political establishment.”69

The case of King, in other words, underscores the nature of the religion/piety relationship. Civic piety emerges from a place of religious motivation,even as it works through and has material impacts on the state. As withabolition, the civil rights movement presents evidence that religion,through the mechanisms and rhetoric of piety, may shape national con-sciousness. From the nation’s colonial inception to the present day, reli-giously motivated interests have played a constitutive role in Americanconsciousness. Here again is where I want to reverse Hart’s premises. Inusing Benjamin Franklin’s comments during the Constitutional Conven-tion (“the day upon which the terms of this contract were fırst mani-fested”70) as evidence of state pragmatics, Hart neglects the long andinceptive role that religion has played in motivating a transcendent Amer-ican identity in the fırst place. From Winthrop to Danforth to Martin LutherKing Jr., the state has been pliable under the force of religiously motivatedrhetorics, not only in its popular culture but also in its very laws. The 2008election marks a signifıcant step in this tradition, because it foregrounds two“outsider” candidates, would-be national priests whose pious visions for thecountry vie for civic influence.

This reversal of premises argument was recently and powerfully rein-forced by Sarah Barringer Gordon in her book The Spirit of the Law. Gordonturns popular interpretations of the Free Exercise Clause on their head,showing that religious impulses have shaped the American legal code farmore than the American legal code has shaped religion. Within this confıg-uration, religion is not afraid to confront the “blasphemous national gov-ernment” in an effort to generate law and policy in accordance with its owninterests.71 It manages to be successful because, as Burt Neuborne argues,the “norms” of religion are “thicker” than those of the state. Their powersare generative, not defensive only, allowing them remarkable freedom toconstitute the culture within which politics operates.72 Gordon also con-cludes that this confıguration naturally entails a conflict between competingreligious worldviews, suggesting a perpetual unease will mark any effort to



bend the nation to the will of religious faith. We see these theories at work asreligious motivations systemically shaped the political landscape of the 2008presidential campaign. Civic piety took center stage not only in an effort toguide the public broadly but to wrestle within itself to advance the mostviable vision.

My second claim, that the 2008 campaign reveals a civic piety in themidst of a conspicuous transition, relies on the unique fact that in twoconsecutive elections two of the leading candidates emerged from margin-alized, even suspect, religious traditions. By virtue of their simultaneouspresence, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are evidence of a unique shift inthe U.S. religious zeitgeist. There have been religiously marginalized candi-dates in the past. It would be easy—too easy—to understand Romney andObama as just the next examples of religious minorities struggling to fınd aviable political footing. As Nancy Gibbs points out, “religious tests, a con-stitutional taboo, are a political tradition.”73 Thomas Jefferson’s deism wascriticized, as was William Howard Taft’s Unitarianism. Adlai Stevenson, adivorced Unitarian, was considered unelectable. Even Dwight Eisenhower,who was raised a Jehovah’s Witness but left the church early in his adult life,was labeled an “anti-Christian Cultist.” And of course John F. Kennedy’s(not to mention Al Smith’s) Catholicism was lambasted as an affront to“American culture.”74 However, in each of these cases, the candidate inquestion addressed the problem by attempting to make his private religiousaffıliation, or lack thereof, recede from view while playing up the civilreligious convictions he held in common with his detractors. Romney andObama employ this same strategy for long stretches of their campaigns, butthe decision ultimately to address the issue directly, and to put forth bold,even provocative visions for a national piety, suggests a historical momentsui generis. Whereas a number of other presidents have drawn upon theirsectarian commitments to promote national piety, they have tended tocome from mainstream denominations—Jimmy Carter was a Baptist andGeorge W. Bush was a Methodist. It seems Romney and Obama homilizeeven from a place of distinct marginalization. These observations point to acivic piety that claims more cultural space and broader interpretive com-plaisance than we have seen in generations.

Even Kennedy, whose famous apologia to the Greater Houston Ministe-rial Association is now part of the American oratorical canon, did littlemore than pledge not to tamper with the nation’s pious traditions.75 The



Romney and Obama speeches are unique for the way they simultaneouslyemerge from marginalized traditions and actively attempt to shape Ameri-can civic piety in distinct, spiritually driven ways. As Brian T. Kaylor pointsout, Romney inserts partisan, sectarian, and liturgical elements into hisspeech, where Kennedy did no such thing. Likewise, as Browne has shown,Obama’s speech is robustly Judeo-Christian in its appeals, and Obamaembraces the opportunity to shape American civic piety according to adiscernable set of spiritual ideals. What I am suggesting, then, is that the2008 case reveals an American civic piety in the midst of a contestedrealignment, as two distinct visions for it emerge in a temporarycounterpoise.

It is also noteworthy that the 2008 and 2012 elections coincide with amassive, ongoing shift in religious demographics, which have become bothmore fluid and more secular.76 Likewise, the period during which theso-called Religious Right has maintained such defınitive levels of influenceon national politics appears to be in its twilight, and Romney’s candidacy isevidence of the downward trend.77 At the same time, general religioustolerance is growing.78 So is tolerance for general lifestyle differences.79 Allof this is to say that the Romney and Obama candidacies of 2008 and 2012are no mere aberrations. Though conservative elements raised concernsregarding the candidates’ private religious beliefs, these concerns did notultimately keep either candidate from the nomination, though it tookRomney a second effort. It seems like no mere coincidence that two leadingcandidates with such nontraditional religious credentials have emergedduring a time of profound demographic flux within American religiousculture.

My third claim, that American piety appears to be headed in a new,relatively well-defıned direction, relies on the fact of Obama’s resoundingvictories in both elections. Not only did Romney fail to close the breach inhis once promising poll numbers, but his ultimate loss of the 2008 nomina-tion to John McCain, a well-known senator with a conventional religiousbackground, was followed four years later by a defınitive loss to BarackObama in the general election of 2012. Meanwhile, Obama, who capturedhis party’s 2008 nomination and the two subsequent general election victo-ries, became a relatively popular two-term president. His poll numbers,which are relatively low as of the writing of this article, have avoidedcollapse even in remarkably sustained dismal economic conditions.80 It is



plausible that Romney’s inability or unwillingness to tell his own story in anempathic way contributed to his demise. By the time he was engaged in hissecond run for the White House in 2012, the smell of inauthenticity couldnot be washed off.

It seems equally plausible that Obama’s eloquence in sharing his ownstory—and inviting his audience to consider their own stories as they makepolitical decisions—played a role in his political success. The implicationhere is that Americans may increasingly favor a civic piety that eschewsdogmatic myths about America’s historical identity, questions and critiquesAmerica’s founding assumptions, celebrates the marginalized and disem-powered while ignoring or otherwise undermining the perspectives of theelite, and grounds American spirituality in the material realities and expe-riences of individuals and groups. Such a piety is broadly consistent with thesentiments of the demographic shift toward a more flexible, tolerant,perspective-based religious outlook. Conversely, criticisms of Romney bearnotable similarities to criticisms of fundamentalism itself.81 Perhaps Rom-ney’s piety was too abstract for this period of civil religious transition.

When G. K. Chesterton claimed the United States was a “nation with thesoul of a church,” perhaps he ought to have said it was a nation of manychurches struggling to inhabit a single soul.82 For this is the cause of civicpiety, to create a single identity from the assorted traditions of a religiouslypluralistic community. I have argued that the Romney and Obamaspeeches, which emerge from extraordinarily similar exigencies at the samemoment in history, present the nation with two competing visions of thenation’s spiritual identity. Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” asks listenersto reflect upon their own experiences, to let this reflection guide theirinteractions with others, and ultimately to guide the whole nation toward akind of communal “perfection.” Romney’s “Faith In America” asks listenersto accept immutable principles and to allow themselves and their interac-tions with others to be guided by conformance to these principles. Suchis the nature of practical civic piety. It draws from religious substance tocreate the grounds and principles of a broader praxis. I have further arguedthat these opposing visions imply a piety that is far more than a boilerplateconcession to the pragmatics of political maneuvering. They are spirituallyvitalized treatises for the American ethos—practical, civic pieties designedto provide a way for Americans to unite in common praxis. Given theresounding result of the elections in question, I have also argued that the



nation appears driven, at least for now, toward a piety of experience guidedby social empathy and a more liberal notion of progress.

NOTES

1. Raymond T. Bond, The Man Who Was Chesterton (Garden City, NJ: Image Books,

1960), 125.

2. Perry Miller, America: A Sketch of Its Political, Social, and Religious Character

(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1961), 80–81.

3. The notion of the president as “national priest” is well known and has been discussed

by scholars from a wide range of disciplines. Though rhetoricians are not the fırst to

employ the priestly metaphor, they have added to its interpretive traction. Karlyn

Kohrs Campbell’s and Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s work, for instance, highlights the

oft-overlooked role of the American president as a religious leader who must interpret

and evangelize the nation’s spirituality in times of trauma (see Presidents Creating the

Presidency: Deeds Done in Words [Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008],

101). Brian T. Kaylor’s work complicates the metaphor by suggesting “pastor” is a

better conceptual vehicle, as it references a “democratic congregational model in which

religious leaders are selected based on their ability to communicate persuasively with a

faithful audience” (see his Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in an Age of Confessional

Politics [Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011], 196–97).

4. Although only one of the two candidates would go on to earn his party’s nomination

that year, the two rivals would face each other four years later in the general election,

drawing their rhetorical rivalry into a span of at least fıve continuous years, assuming

one includes the mostly silent but never absent fıgure of Mitt Romney during the fırst

half of Barack Obama’s fırst term in offıce.

5. Sal Gentile, “Pastor’s Denunciation of Mormonism as Cult Raises Questions about

Romney Bid,” PBS/The Daily Need, October 12, 2011, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-

to-know/the-daily-need/pastors-denunciation-of-mormonism-as-cult-raises-questions-

about-romney-bid/11948/ (accessed June 15, 2013). See penultimate paragraph in

particular.

6. See “CNN Poll: Obama’s Losing Support,” CNN.com, May 1, 2008,

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/01/dem.poll/ (accessed February 2014). See

also Jennifer Parker, “Romney: I’m Not Giving a JFK Speech,” ABC News, December 3,

2007, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2007/12/romney-im-not-g/ (accessed

February 5, 2014).



http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/pastors-denunciation-of-mormonism-as-cult-raises-questions-about-romney-bid/11948/



http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/01/dem.poll/

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2007/12/romney-im-not-g/

7. Neither Romney nor Obama admitted to giving his speech as a result of falling poll

numbers; however, each of the two speeches acknowledges within the text itself a

motivating exigency. Romney, for example, admits that many people have questions

about his faith, and that he will answer them. Obama openly engages his personal

relationship with Jeremiah Wright, who is at the center of the media storm impacting

Obama’s candidacy.

8. Regarding “Faith in America,” see Martin J. Medhurst, “Mitt Romney, ‘Faith in

America,’ and the Dance of Religion and Politics in American Culture,” Rhetoric &

Public Affairs 12 (2009): 195–221; and Brian T. Kaylor, “No Jack Kennedy: Mitt

Romney’s ‘Faith in America’ Speech and the Changing Religious-Political

Environment,” Communication Studies 62 (2011): 491–507. Regarding “A More

Perfect Union,” see Robert E. Terrill, “Unity and Duality in Barack Obama’s ‘A More

Perfect Union,’” Quarterly Journal of Speech 95 (2009): 363–86; Susanna Dilliplane,

“Race, Rhetoric, and Running for President,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 15 (2012):

127–52; and David A. Frank, “The Prophetic Voice and the Face of the Other in Barack

Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ Address, March 18, 2008,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs

12 (2009): 167–94.

9. Nneka Ifeoma Ofulue, “President Clinton and the White House Prayer Breakfast,” in

The Political Pulpit Revisited, ed. Roderick P. Hart and John L. Pauley II (West

Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2005), 129.

10. I am using the transcripts from americanrhetoric.org. Both speeches are transcribed

from the original audio, and both are available in the website’s “Speech Bank.”

Hereafter, the speeches will be footnoted by author name: “A More Perfect Union” will

be footnoted as Barack Obama (no quotation marks), and “Faith in America” will be

footnoted as Mitt Romney (no quotation marks), followed usually by a paragraph

number.

11. For a discussion on this history, see Ronald Weed and John von Heyking’s Introduction

to Civil Religion in Political Thought: Its Perennial Questions and Enduring Relevance in

North America (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press 2010), 1.

12. Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” in The Robert Bellah Reader, ed. Robert

N. Bellah and Steven M. Tipton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 231.

13. Bellah, “Civil Religion,” 233.

14. Bellah, “Civil Religion,” 245.

15. Hart and Pauley, The Political Pulpit Revisited, 43.

16. Hart and Pauley, Revisited, 38.

17. Quoted in Hart and Pauley, Revisited, 46.




19. Martin J. Medhurst, “Forging a Civil Religious Construct for the Twenty-fırst Century:

Should Hart’s ‘Contract’ Be Renewed?,” in The Political Pulpit Revisited, 154.


21. Ofulue, “President Clinton,” 128–29.

22. Ofulue, “President Clinton,” 129.



25. “Piety,” OED Online, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/143641?rskey�dglCIo&

result�1#eid (accessed October 10, 2013).

26. Sedgewick, The Christian Moral Life, 148.

27. Biggar quoted in Sedgewick, The Christian Moral Life, 147.

28. Sedgewick, The Christian Moral Life, 148–49.

29. Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955), 78.

30. Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew, 79.







37. Medhurst, “Mitt Romney,” 197.

38. “How the Public Perceives Romney, Mormons,” Pew Forum on Religion and Public

Life, December 4, 2007, http://www.pewforum.org/2007/12/04/how-the-public-

perceives-romney-mormons/ (accessed August 12, 2013).

39. See, for example, Richard Benjamin Crosby, “Mitt Romney’s Paralipsis: (Un)Veiling

Jesus in ‘Faith in America,’” Rhetoric Review 32 (2013): 120.

40. See Dan Balz and Jon Cohen, “Huckabee Gaining Ground in Iowa,” Washingtonpost.

com, November 21, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/

2007/11/20/AR2007112002211.html (accessed June 15, 2013).

41. For a statement on the emerging openness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints to historical and intellectual interrogations, see the interview with Terryl Givens

and Richard Bushman, two of the leading scholars on Mormon history and theology, at

By Common Consent, March 1, 2007, http://bycommonconsent.com/2007/03/01/

interview-terryl-given-and-richard-bushman-part-i/ (accessed January 7, 2013). For a

discussion of Mormonism’s Correlation program, see Matthew Bowman, The Mormon

People: The Making of an American Religion (New York: Random House, 2012),

185–95. Also see Bowman’s article in Slate, “How Mormons Went from Beard Wearing



http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/143641?rskey=dglCIo%26result=1#eid

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/143641?rskey=dglCIo%26result=1#eid

http://www.pewforum.org/2007/12/04/how-the-public-perceives-romney-mormons/

http://www.pewforum.org/2007/12/04/how-the-public-perceives-romney-mormons/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/20/AR2007112002211.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/20/AR2007112002211.html

http://bycommonconsent.com/2007/03/01/interview-terryl-given-and-richard-bushman-part-i/

http://bycommonconsent.com/2007/03/01/interview-terryl-given-and-richard-bushman-part-i/

Radicals to Clean Cut Conformists,” Slate, April 25, 2012, http://www.slate.com/

articles/life/faithbased/2012/04/mormon_correlation_the_bureaucratic_reform_

policy_that_redefıned_mormon_culture.html (accessed August 12, 2013).

42. See “Fundamentalism,” Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/

fundamentalism?s�t (accessed August 12, 2013).

43. See Terrill, “Unity and Duality”; and Dilliplane, “Race, Rhetoric.”

44. Frank, “The Prophetic Voice.”

45. A good example of how conservatives framed Obama’s and Wright’s relationship and

that relationship’s grounding in black liberation theology is this YouTube video, which

captures some of the more well-known concerns from Fox News pundits during the

2008 campaign. See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v�plRkc7_a4EM

(accessed August 13, 2014).

46. Stephen Mansfıeld, The Faith of Barack Obama (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2008),

138–40.

47. Mansfıeld, The Faith, 141.



50. Phillip Berryman, Liberation Theology: Essential Facts about the Revolutionary

Movement in Latin America and Beyond (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press,

1987), 6.

51. Berryman, Liberation Theology, 7.

52. Gustavo Gutierrez, The God of Life (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991), 112.

53. Berryman, Liberation Theology, 12.

54. Robert McAfee Brown, Liberation Theology: An Introductory Guide (Louisville, KY:

Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 73.

55. Brown, Liberation Theology, 75.



58. Quoted in Brown, Liberation Theology, 82.

59. Stephen Howard Browne, “Close Textual Analysis: Approaches and Applications,” in

Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action, ed. Jim A. Kuypers (New York: Lexington

Books, 2009), 69.

60. See James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,

1990), 56–57.

61. Mitt Romney, “Faith in America,” par. 7.

62. Mitt Romney, “Faith in America,” par. 7.

63. Barack Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” pars. 2–3.



http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2012/04/mormon_correlation_the_bureaucratic_reform_policy_that_redefined_mormon_culture.html



http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fundamentalism?s=t

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fundamentalism?s=t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plRkc7_a4EM

64. Barack Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” par. 15.

65. For an accessible and well researched discussion on this subject, see: Kenneth C. Davis,

“America’s True History of Religious Tolerance,” Smithisonian.com, October 2010,

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-

61312684/?no-ist (accessed March 18, 2015).

66. Joe Scarborough, “Scarborough: Romney Doesn’t Have an Ideological Bone in His

Body,” TV.com, http://www.tv.com/shows/morning-joe/watch/scarborough-romney-

doesnt-have-an-ideological-bone-in-his-body-2447429/ (accessed August 12, 2013).

67. Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press,

2002), 10.

68. Mitt Romney, “Faith in America,” par. 6. The statement reads: “There are some

who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context

of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation’s

Founders, . . . ” (italics added).

69. Ronald Lee, “The Force of Religion in the Public Sphere,” in The Political Pulpit

Revisited, 101.

70. Hart, Revisited, 45.

71. Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in

Modern America (New York: Belknap Press, 2010), 90.

72. Burt Neuborne, “How Belief Has Shaped America’s Laws,” Jewish Daily Forward, June

2, 2010, http://forward.com/articles/128491/how-belief-has-shaped-america-s-laws/

(accessed January 7, 2014).

73. Nancy Gibbs, “The Piety Trap,” Time, September 13, 2010, 68.

74. Gibbs, “The Piety Trap,” 68.

75. As Brian T. Kaylor notes, the distinction of Kennedy’s speech is that it strictly abided

by the civil religious contract. In this sense, it would be an excellent example of Hart’s

interpretation of civic piety, a spiritually detached oath to enforce the so-called

Establishment Clause both personally and politically.

76. “Religious Landscape Survey,” Pew Research Religion and Public Life, http://religions.

pewforum.org/reports (accessed January 7, 2014).

77. Dana Milbank, “For the Religious Right, Faith without Works,” Washington Post,

January 20, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/religious-right-has-lost-its-

political-influence/2012/01/20/gIQAsnMrDQ_story.html (accessed January 25, 2014).

78. “Portraits of American Life: Study Reveals Changes in Attitude toward Religion,

Morality, Politics and Other Social Issues,” Science Daily, June 28, 2013,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130628131019.htm (accessed January 7,

2014).



http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist

http://www.tv.com/shows/morning-joe/watch/scarborough-romney-doesnt-have-an-ideological-bone-in-his-body-2447429/

http://www.tv.com/shows/morning-joe/watch/scarborough-romney-doesnt-have-an-ideological-bone-in-his-body-2447429/

http://forward.com/articles/128491/how-belief-has-shaped-america-s-laws/

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/religious-right-has-lost-its-political-influence/2012/01/20/gIQAsnMrDQ_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/religious-right-has-lost-its-political-influence/2012/01/20/gIQAsnMrDQ_story.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/06/130628131019.htm

79. Mark Penn, “Americans Are Losing Confıdence in the Nation but Still Believe in

Themselves,” Atlantic, June 27, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/

2012/06/americans-are-losing-confıdence-in-the-nation-but-still-believe-in-themselves/

259039/ (accessed January 7, 2014).

80. See, for example, Jennifer Rubin, “Why Are Obama’s Poll Numbers Crashing?”

Washington Post, July 24, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/

2013/07/24/why-are-obamas-poll-numbers-crashing/ (accessed August 12, 2013).

81. See Kathleen C. Boone, The Bible Tells Them So: The Discourse of Protestant

Fundamentalism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989), 6. Also, as I suggested earlier,

Romney’s assumption of a “tradition of religious liberty” is problematic, and I have

pointed out elsewhere that his defınition of the Constitution’s “no religious test clause”

is selective, even inaccurate (“Mitt Romney’s Paralipsis,” 131). Nevertheless, he

establishes these premises as self-evident truths and proceeds to avow his alignment

with them, resulting in a persistent sense of detachment. Jonah Goldberg sums up the

feelings of most of the electorate when he writes that Romney is “weakest when

discussing his own motives and career. Romney can sell ideas, and he can criticize

Obama well. But he has a very hard time selling himself” (see Jonah Goldberg,

“Romney’s Authenticity Problem,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2012,

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/10/opinion/la-oe-goldberg-romney-20120110

[accessed August 13, 2014]). The Atlantic goes still further with an article from January

31, 2012, entitled, “The Uncanny Valley: What Robot Theory Tell Us about Mitt

Romney.” The article highlights the awkward and uncomfortable relationship voters

have with the sterile appearance of perfection, an image Romney seems to have spent a

lifetime trying to cultivate, as if to program himself to appear and act like what the

perfect presidential candidate is supposed to appear and act like (see http://www.

theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/the-uncanny-valley-what-robot-theory-tells-us-

about-mitt-romney/252235/ [accessed August 13, 2014]). In other words, Romney has

assumed some image, external from himself, of what he is supposed to be, and he has

spent a career testing himself against that image.

82. Bond, The Man Who Was, 125.



http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/06/americans-are-losing-confidence-in-the-nation-but-still-believe-in-themselves/259039/



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/07/24/why-are-obamas-poll-numbers-crashing/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/07/24/why-are-obamas-poll-numbers-crashing/

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/10/opinion/la-oe-goldberg-romney-20120110

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/the-uncanny-valley-what-robot-theory-tells-us-about-mitt-romney/



Toward a Practical, Civic Piety: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, and The Race for National Priest. Rhetoric and Public Affairs 18.2

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