Presidents as saviors

At The Washington Post‘s On Faith page, Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham ask a series of respondents whether the American people view their presidents as spiritual leaders and, further, whether they should.  Reverend Janet Edwards answers in the affirmative on both counts:

Americans expect the president to be a spiritual leader as well as a political leader. There is a spiritual aspect to the American enterprise that has roots in the “city upon a hill” image of the Puritans on their ships, as well as later immigrants who set off for the unknown fueled by a hope for a better life. This is why presidents may address the crowd from the Jumbotron at the Super Bowl and why political fundraising as New Orleans was drowning struck such a discordant note.

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Jessica Polebaum is a contributing editor for The Immanent Frame and a J.D. candidate at Georgetown University. A former program and editorial associate at the Social Science Research Council, she holds a B.A. in religion from Middlebury College, where her undergraduate work culminated in a senior honors thesis on ijtihad---a concept from classical Islamic law---and its use in modern reform movements. Upon graduating in 2008, she received the Ann and Edward Meyers Religion Prize for exceptional ability in the understanding, expression, and integration of ideas in the area of religious studies.

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