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Religion and politics have been deeply intertwined throughout American history, and there is a long and rich tradition of both scholarly and popular analysis of American presidents. Although numerous books explore the presidents’ personal piety and use of civil religion rhetoric, few books or articles examine, or even suggest, that their religious convictions influenced their public policies and performance as our nation’s chief executives. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the religious convictions and practices of eleven presidents who lived in different historical eras and had different denominational backgrounds. It focuses on those chief executives for whom religion was an important issue because of their own beliefs, the issues they confronted, the elections they participated in, and/or the times in which they lived. In evaluating the faith of these eleven presidents and the role of religion in their administrations, five themes are emphasized: the nature of their convictions, the separation of church and state, civil religion, America as a chosen nation, and the issue of character.

Although the religious convictions and practices of many presidents have been ignored, Washington’s have been closely scrutinized and endlessly debated. Some authors have portrayed the Virginian as the epitome of piety, while others have depicted him as the patron saint of skepticism. Washington was a life-long Episcopalian, but the fact that he said almost nothing publicly or privately about the precise nature of his beliefs has evoked competing claims that he was a devout Christian, a Unitarian, a “warm deist”, and a “theistic rationalist”. One point, however, is not debatable: Washington strongly believed that providence played a major role in helping the United States win the Revolutionary War and function successfully as a republic. Arguably no president has stressed the role of providence in the nation’s history more than Washington. His religious convictions are clearly evident in the pivotal role he played in helping establish religious liberty and toleration as key principles of the new nation. As president, Washington was the first major spokesperson and practitioner of American civil religion, and after his death he became a principal figure in its development.

Since most academic disciplinary communities emphasize narrow expertise, talking about religion can easily be perceived (except for faculty credentialed in religious studies) as amateurish and unscholarly. Edwards argues that the professional formation of faculty, both in graduate schools and in the promotion and tenure process, encourages faculty to bracket personal religious convictions from their work as scholars and teachers. Yet there are important questions—questions about metaphysics, morality, and personal self‐disclosure—where religion is a natural component. As faculty work with students, it may not be necessary to automatically push religion aside.

This chapter compares John Rawls's and Jürgen Habermas's concepts of ‘public reason’ in their starting points and methods as the framework for the role accorded to religious convictions within democratic opinion- and will-formation. Differences identified as crucial for the place of comprehensive doctrines are: the understanding of the tasks imposed by pluralism; the status and scope accorded to morality; autonomy as the normative basis of democracy; the public/private distinction; the relationship between reason and consensus; and the hermeneutical or critical function of philosophy. Habermas's new move to accept religious contributions to public reason is based on his understanding of democracy as a learning project and on his appreciation of their motivating and critical potential over against the pathologies of liberal societies. His demand for mutual ‘translation’ between secular and religious fellow-citizens is evaluated theologically. It needs to be developed to encompass the relations between reason, revelation, and inculturation, as well as practical reason and its hope for the highest good, to allow for the creativity of new cultural syntheses.

This is a continuation of the problem being solved in the last two chapters, and this chapter is focused on the religious grounds to decision-making. One of the main arguments against using religious grounds is their “nonaccessibility” to others. It means that persons who hold religious convictions do so substantially on the basis of experience that is not fully accessible to others. This does not mean that reason plays no part in the development of religious convictions. Possible religious understandings may be measured against various tests of reasonableness. But something more is involved: a choice or judgment based on personal experience that goes beyond what reason can establish. The chapter is also able to find accessible grounds in favor of religion: the philosophic argument for God, the existence of possible evidence in history in favor of one's faith, and the fruits of conviction that may lead to positive things even for nonbelievers.

Recent decades have produced a myriad of attempts by religious groups to influence public affairs. From the efforts of clergy in the 1960s to advance the cause of civil rights to the protests organized by religious groups in the 1980s against abortion, the last part of the 20th century has given us ample opportunity to consider the ways in which religious convictions can make a difference in public life. The formal dismantling of Moral Majority marked a significant turning point. It brought an important chapter in the efforts of conservative Christians to influence American politics to a close. The religious Right is a particularly instructive case for considering how believers with firm convictions in the divine truth of their cause confront the pluralism inherent in American public life. The religious Right underwent changes that are themselves valuable lessons in the pragmatic norms of public policy. The chapter also provides a helpful case for considering how morality functions in the public arena. Above all, it represents a movement that was remarkably adept in the use of symbolism for political purposes.

The final essay, “Religious Toleration and Claims of Conscience,” explores an issue that is now highly controversial, especially after Hobby Lobby: when should those with religious convictions be exempted from legal duties, particularly if those performing those duties promote the rights of others or basic rights of equality? The essay explores various reasons to recognize rights of conscience. In contrast to those who claim that it is always or never appropriate to single out religious claims, it urges that much depends on the particular subject. For a draft law nonreligious pacifists should be treated like religious ones; for an exemption regarding how to kill animals for consumption, limiting exemptions from requirements to religious claims for special treatment is appropriate. The essay explores concern about religious exemptions and contraceptive use and same-sex marriage. The latter issue has been heightened by the Supreme Court’s establishment of a constitutional right to such marriage.

This chapter explores the factors that help rational actors sustain religious conviction over time. It does so by studying the rapid growth of female madrasas in Pakistan. Until the late 1970s, the country had no provision for female madrasas. Today, however, the growth of female madrasas is outpacing those for men, and they are also attracting more affluent groups. Based on interviews with parents and group discussions with students, the popularity of Islamic principles and the demand for female madrasas are attributed to two features: their practical relevance (i.e. their usefulness for the believer in a day-to-day context) and their appeal to reason. Against a background of low quality secular education and weak links between education and formal employment, female madrasas are in high demand because they empower the students psychologically, socially, and economically. Further, the analysis shows that notions of well-being and modernity are relative ideas, such that rules that may appear confining to Western feminists can be seen as liberating and empowering by Muslim women. Thus, preference formation cannot be understood without recognizing the influence of history and culture, and the subjective nature of individual preference.

The Byzantine Empire—the de facto continuation of the Roman Empire—lasted more than twice as long as its Western counterpart, which dissolved in the fifth century. Its endurance—approximately 800 years—is all the more remarkable because it was favoured neither by geography nor by military dominance. In Chapter 3, Edward Luttwak asserts that the Byzantine Empire relied less on military strength than on persuasion—to recruit allies, dissuade threatening neighbours, and manipulate potential enemies into attacking one another. The Byzantines had a grand strategy, even if it was never stated explicitly, and applied it so consistently that one might refer to it as the Byzantine ‘operational code’. Luttwak concludes that a key to the Byzantines' success was that military strategy was subordinated to diplomacy instead of the other way round, and used mostly to contain or intimidate rather than to attack or defend with full force.

“Religion and Public Reasons: Making Laws and Evaluating Candidates,” shows that what actually count as public reasons can differ for legislators and judges, that even among public reasons there can obviously be conflicts, and that public reason itself cannot always settle the assignment of weight. Citizens and legislators cannot completely put aside their comprehensive views, since public reason is often radically incomplete. The religious affiliations and convictions of candidates for important public offices could make a difference for a rational voter; but by fully explaining their exact religious convictions, candidates could easily cause harms of unfair prejudice. Thus, in the United States, it was best for candidates, such as John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney, to sketch how they saw their religion relating to their political convictions, but not to provide a detailed account or claim that their religion itself is a basic reason to vote for them.

This chapter explores the question of when a professor should disclose his or her personal religious beliefs in the classroom. While there are often good reasons to withhold one’s own convictions, it is pedagogically helpful in certain situations to show students how one’s thinking is intertwined with one’s beliefs. Two considerations shape the author’s view of statements about personal faith in the context of higher education. Teaching the genre of autobiography shows the value of self-scrutiny and personal narrative not only in the course texts, but also as elicited in readers. Second, a professor’s vocation includes helping students to become more thoughtful and articulate about their own religious convictions and values and their relevance to various situations. A good teacher enables a student to respond well to callings to explain how beliefs shape thinking and actions—that is, to be a professor of religion.

Since George Washington, faith has played a very important and often controversial role in the lives of American presidents. Nevertheless, few scholars have carefully analyzed how chief executives’ religious convictions affected their lives, policies, or decisions. Substantial evidence contradicts the frequent claim that a president’s faith matters little in how he governs. Throughout American history many citizens have viewed strong faith as an asset, if not a requirement, for politicians, especially presidents. Most Americans have expected the president to uphold the nation’s highest values and to serve as its moral leader. Many argue that the presidents’ character is as or more significant than their intellect, administrative abilities, or speaking talents. While paying close attention to historical contexts and shifting social and moral values, the book explores the lives, beliefs, character, use of religious rhetoric, policies, elections, and relationships with religious constituencies of eleven of America’s more colorful, charismatic, and complex leaders.

John Adams’s faith is difficult to decipher because he said so much about it and his views are so complex. One of the most theologically astute laypeople of his generation, Adams sought to steer a middle course between Deism and skepticism, on one side, and Calvinism, on the other, that led him to lean toward Arminianism and ultimately embrace Unitarianism. He argued that God was actively involved in the world, people had free choice, and salvation depended on behavior rather than belief. Adams’s diligent efforts to avoid war with France are discussed to illustrate how his faith affected his presidency. Although his religious convictions became more liberal in his later years, the central ones remained remarkably consistent. Adams’s faith played a vital role in his long and distinguished life by significantly affecting his worldview, determining his moral standards, helping shape his character, and supplying many of his goals.

This study leads to several conclusions. First, it is difficult to disentangle the personal religious convictions of presidents from their use of religion to serve partisan political purposes. Moreover, the complexity and inconsistency of their convictions, changes in their beliefs over the years, their reticence to discuss their faith, and the incongruity between their words and deeds make assessing their faith very challenging. Second, although many of these eleven presidents became more religious while in office, they all adopted an ecumenical religious perspective. Third, war or the threat of war played a major role in numerous presidencies and tested, and, in several cases, fortified their faith. Fourth, their faith helped stimulate presidents to be more compassionate, generous, and hopeful and strongly influenced some of their actions. Although the founders wisely separated church and state, faith and the presidency and religious belief and politics, have been inextricably joined.

This chapter explains that the sexual seduction of the Samaritan woman by Jesus leads to a religious conviction on her part that he is the Messiah. The connection between sexual seduction and religious conviction is a common one. This can be seen in John's method of presenting how she came by her belief. It also states, however, that this is still surprising for three reasons: wrongful religious attachment is thought of in terms of sexual seduction; there is another difference between John and other biblical precedents as foreign women are usually depicted as the seducers of idolatry; and John's portrayal of Jesus' interaction with the woman as sexual is not without a biblical precedent.

“How Persuasive is Natural Law Theory?” explores natural law. What does it contribute, are its forms of reasoning universally valid, and what role may religious convictions play in general beliefs about natural law? Concentrating on the work of John Finnis, a leading scholar, the essay urges that the real concern is not categorization of whether a human law that violates natural law is really a “law,” but whether such laws should be obeyed, and by whom. On some questions, whether one can kill innocent people for no good reason, a claim of universal natural law stands. But on many others, historical and cultural context matters. Natural law reasoning is often too abstract and categorical. Given limits to what reason can resolve, human experience needs to be accorded considerable weight. Some assertions made by natural lawyers that are hard to defend by ordinary reason may actually rest on religious convictions.

This chapter discusses the rich religious history of Yale, and its contributions to the establishment and growth of the nation. Since Yale's beginning, graduates of Yale College, many of whom were motivated by their religious convictions, and later in Yale's history alumni of the Divinity School, have given remarkable service in various areas of public and private life in the United States and around the world. Yale has nurtured distinguished religious leaders of the church, community, and academy throughout its history. There have been preachers among each generation of Yale graduates, some of whose voices have been heard on campus since the mid-1700s and in Battell Chapel after it was built in 1878.