Of late, public commentators on matters of faith and politics have been eager to say that there is nothing new under the sun. Sure, President Bush often talks about God and faith, they observe, but so too have previous presidents. Nothing to see here.
The problem with this perspective is that it is based largely on anecdotes, speculation and, perhaps, wishful thinking. We thought this important debate would benefit from some hard facts, so we did what academics love to do: we ran the numbers.
Analyzing several thousand public communications from presidents and political parties over the past eight decades revealed a remarkable trend: The relationship between religion and politics changed dramatically in 1981 and has yet to change back. Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan have far outpaced their modern peers in using what we call the God Strategy—a demonstrably public form of religion designed to attract voters and achieve political objectives.
Consider some numbers. On average, presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter mentioned God in less than half of their major addresses. Put another way, more often than not presidents during these years made no mention of God in important speeches. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush (through year six) all did so in more than 90% of theirs. Further, the total number of references to God in the average presidential speech since 1981 was an astounding 120% higher than the average speech from 1933-1980. The number of references to broader religious terms, such as faith, pray, sacred, worship, and dozens of others increased by 60%.
Presidential requests for divine favor are another area where the Reagan shift is evident. The phrase “God Bless America,” now the signature tag line of modern American politics, only gained ubiquity in the 1980s. In fact, prior to 1981, the phrase had only once passed a modern president’s lips in a major address: Richard Nixon’s, as he concluded an April 30, 1973 speech about the Watergate scandal. Since Reagan, presidents have rarely concluded a major address without “God Bless America” or a close variant.
Wherever we look, whatever we measure—from speeches to religious audiences, proclamations, party platforms, even presidential celebrations of Christmas—our analysis points to the same conclusion: we face a very different religious-political environment than our parents did.
Politics today is marked by an omnipresent public religiosity that often takes on an overtly partisan edge. A willingness to boldly declare one’s religious bona fides has become a requirement of every campaign for national office. One can’t help but wonder what would become of a candidate today who dared to echo John Kennedy’s powerful words from the 1960 campaign: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute…I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair.”
David Domke is Professor of Communication at the University of Washington. Kevin Coe is a doctoral candidate in Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. They are authors of the just-released The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America (Oxford).
