- Religion and presidency – the religious implications of the presidential oath –
This paper is an attempt to understand the strong connection which exists between religion and politics in the American society by taking into account the presidential issue. Moreover, it is thought to be an approach that tries to identify and display the deeper significance of the above topic. It also incorporates a variety of concrete examples from the recent life of the American community, whose aim is to illustrate better the religious implications of the presidential institution in uttering the oath of office when elected as president of the United States. As regards my motivation for choosing to dwell upon this subject, I may say that it lies in my curiosity to find out more on this issue, as my attention was stirred in this way by a recent topic - that of the present-day American president Obama taking the oath of office as President of the United States.
First, I find it appropiate to mention that going back in the history of the United States will be a necessary condition for our comprehending the above stated issue. Secondly, it would be suitable to paraphrase Alexis de Toqueville’s appreciation in his study Democracy in America - in which he labels politics as the only pleasure an American knows - and this might shed some light upon our understanding of this subject. Moreover, it would be suitable to make a short analysis of the American institution of presidency, which seems to have a paramount importance among the other institutions of the American society. Thus, in the followings, I intend to touch upon the relation between politics, religion and presidential administration. Likewise, I aim at analyzing the influence of the religion in the realm of politics, more exactly in connection to the presidential administration in the course of the American history[1]. In this respect, one may notice that religion contributes heavily to the issue of politics, and there was always a powerful lyant between the field of politics and that of religion – a proeminent aspect even today at the level of the presidential administration.
However, such theories cannot be fully demonstrated without taking into acount the American Constitution, which renders the constitutional basis for the power of the American president ( Article 2). Likewise, in the beginning of the Constitution of the United States, it is stated that : „We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This article aims at the reasons for which the American constitution appeared; one may notice that one of these aims is that of securing „the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”. Consequently, freedom becomes not only the recurrent issue of the American constitution, but also of an entire nation, which even from its very beginnings as a state offers the issue of liberty a special position in the state’s policy. As a result of assuring the right to freedom, one must add that it is the Constitution who quarantees one of its components such as the freedom of religion:
„Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
Thus, the First Ammendment assures the freedom of religion, but the way in which this freedom is understood and respected depends on the decisions of the courts. Hence, in a recent decision of the Supreme Court as regards the case Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet[2], , Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion". Consequently, what derives from here is that the government should not interfere as regards the religion and it should not favour any type of religion or irreligion, be it atheism, agnosticism and many others.
However, going back to the topic of my paper, I may add the fact that the executive power in a state is represented by the president, whose function was very much debated and which stirred a lot of controversies. To quote from Alexis de Toqueville ”the president of the United States possesses almost royal prerogatives which he has no opportunity of exercising”[3] In order to quote from the law, the followings should be mentioned: ”The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”( Article II, Section 1 from the Constitution of The United States). Therefore, the presidency as an institution should not have any religious viewpoint; but as this institution is mostly related to the figure of the elected president ( currently one speaks about the Nixon administration, or the Bush administration an so on) one must distinguish between the presidency - as an institution, which is subject to the the above discussed constitutional regulations- and the president, who is the subject of totally different and opposite regulations – the president, like any other citizen, is protected by the Constitution and is entitled to have any religious belief.
Consequently, the president is not able to enact any law, which may impose his own religion as the state religion because, on the one hand, this unconstitutional law cannot be passed, but on the other hand it may put foreward a certain type of policy, by which he may enforce the doctrine included in these religious convictions[4]. Ergo, are these constitutional regulations against the law? Is the president – in his fuction as the head of a state- entitled to give declarations about his religious beliefs or even about God? Subsequently, the atheists can accuse the president of breaking the law anytime he utters the word „God”, by simply drawing the conclusion that this supports the idea of the existence of God because a divinity is invoked.
Thus, another question arises from here: how can possibly such an administration separates from the community, whose interests it represents? In theory, it would be a blatant infringement of the principle of the presidential mandate, which must be eventually respected. On this account, which has priority over which: the presidential mandate or the Constitution? In order to give an answer to this question, it is worth analyzing the inaugural speech, which is uttered any time a president is elected as head of the state:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
According to the Joint Congressional Committee on Presidential Inaugurations, George Washington added the words "So help me God" during his first inaugural, though this has been disputed. There are no contemporaneous sources for this fact, and no eyewitness sources to Washington's first inaugural mention the phrase by including those that transcribed what he said for his oath. [5]
The Vice President also has an oath of office, but it is not mandated by the Constitution and it is prescribed by statute. Currently, the Vice Presidential oath is the same as that for Members of Congress, namely:
”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. ”
Even Barack Obama made a reference to the divinity when he took the oath of office, although such a remark is not stipulated in the Constitution.[6] As a result, it is obvious that Obama ”prefers religion to irreligion”. Moreover, the difference between the oath of office of the president and that of the vice-president is visible as the latter ends up with the formula ”So help me God”. Thus, how can a president swear that he ”will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" and then break his obligation and adds the contrary: ”So help me God”? when we refer to the above matter that ”government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion”- The Supreme Court.
In the followings, I find it appropriate to examine the case of the one dollar banknote; it has the following form, that we all know:
Furthermore, in the upper part of the banknote it is obvious the formula „In God we Trust”. Do we need any other clear evidence in order to admit that even though the American state is a non-religious one it proves the contrary on the basis of this expression? Likewise, from this fact it results that the American president, although constrained by the Constitution, he neither can submit to the will of a majority of the citizens who chose him nor can he turn himself from a religious citizen before the moment of taking the oath into a non-religious president afterwards.
Moreover, even from the Roman empire times, the provisions for the valability of the consent were established. Thus, we are in the presence of a valid consent when the following conditions are met:
· it must come from a discernable person.
· it must be given with the intention of producing legal effects
· it must be serious and beyond joke (jocandi causa) or without any mental reservation (reservatio mentalis) which is known by the other part or under the provision of potestative clause (clause containing conditions which subject one of the parties to the will of the other party)
· it must be precise
· it must be open – written, orally, through symbols or any other conclusive fact
· it must not be altered by vices of consent (error, violence, lesion).
Nevertheless, when we take into consideration the legal criterion as regards the relation between the president and the United States of America, it should be added the fact that a contract is signed after the election of the president. Thus, by law, he is assigned various obligations, which he has to fulfill. Besides, the moment of taking the oath of office is of paramount importance because it has the significance of an agreement offer of the American people. Furthermore, the Americans seen as a party of this contract, give their acceptance by choosing the president, and thus the preisdent should ’give his consent’ in order this agreement to be valid. Consequently, the agreement from both sides is necessary for concluding the contract between the American people and the president and it is visible when the oath of office is uttered. From this moment, the president is linked by contract to his people on condition that this is valid.
From this point of view it can be argued that Barack Obama took the oath with “reservatio mentalis” but he also added to this his faith in God, which stays in contradiction with the First Ammendment of the Constitution. As I have previously mentioned, the provision under which the “reservatio mentalis” is invalid is stated in the text of the oath: „that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation”. As a result, can the question of invalidity of the agreement arise each time the presidents invoked in their oath the word ’God’?
Therefore, th answer depends on the legal conditions under which the presidential oath is uttered. Accordingly, if one takes into account the American constitution on the whole, from which it clearly results that a secular state was yearned from the very moment the American state was established[7], then one reaches the conclusion that the oath is invalid, because it stays in ackward contradiction with the purpose of the American law. The invalidity would spring from the fact that between the people, the Constitution and the president their is a tryad relation. Thus, the president is elected by the people by respecting the legal proceedings so that, once the agreement between him and his people is given, this consent should be made public by the moment of taking the oath. In this respect, the Constitution would be the only lyant of the presidential mandate to the extent that it represents the provisions under which the oath is valid.
However, the above stated ideas lead us to the conclusion that the conditions under which the oath is taken should be taken seriously into consideration. In favour of this idea, it should be appropriate to bring into discussion the recent case of the newly invested president of the United States, Barack Obama[8]. Although the moment of retaking the oath can be considered as "an abundance of caution", as Barack Obama has taken the oath of office a second time because a word was out of sequence when he was sworn in on Tuesday. Likewise, it seeems that, out of different reasons, a word missing or being misplaced, could lead both to the invalidity of the oath and also to the disregard of the Constitution, despite of the fact that a phrase is added to the constitutional text and it is not deprived of importance; on the contrary, it stays in contradiction with the spirit of the Constitution. In addition to this, it can be concluded that the form prevails over the content and so the elected president should agree to the American people in the manner prescribed by the law.
In conclusion, the opposite argument is in favour of the validity of the oath with reference to the divinity, so one cannot agree with this because the elected president is a normal citizen untli the moment of taking the oath. After the moment of being sworn in, the figure of the president encompases the institution of the presidency, which he represents. Subsequently, the oath and the addendum So help me God would function only as a sentence of empowering the oath, which was uttered from the perspective as a mere citizen and not from the position of the president, the exponent of the constitutional regulations. Even though, it may be appropriate to compare the way in which the two opponents in the presidential elections have made use of the religious issue; thus John McCain supports the idea that the United States represents a Christian nation, while Barack Obama favours the significance of the dissosication of church and state[9].
All in all, I may state that this conclusion is far from being elucidated and I find it suitable to conclude with the lines of a famous American poet, Walt Whitman, as regards the democracy:
”A great city is that which has the greatest men and women
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audiacityof elected persons,
Where fierce men and women pour forth as the sea to the whistle of death pours its weeping and unript waves,
Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, Major, Governor and what not, are agents for pay…
There the great city stands”
Walt Whitman
[1] It may be suitable to mention the fact that the president as leader of a nation has a civil religious role : this involves such things as offering prayers to grieving families of soldiers killed in action or invoking God’s blessing on the nation on Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, or even presidential inauguration”(see Fowler/ Hertzke p.113).
[2] See Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet , List of United States
[4] As Fowler and Hertzke(1995:112) have written: ”…elites are not empty vessels. They bring to their work their own religious backgrounds, worldviews and biases”.
[7] It would be enough to mention the main reasons for which the Pilgrims came to the “New World”, that is because of the religious persecutions in Europe.
[9] See http://pewforum.org/religion08/compare.php?Issue=Church_and_State.
