2.....In his recently-published 800-page A SECULAR AGE, Charles Taylor details the increasing use of “secular” speech in the public forum as the sacred language of the vertical-transcendent has bowed toward the flatland of horizontal-immanent. In “Pilgrim’s Progress,” John Bunyan dealt with this tendency in the muckraker, who never looked up.
In 1972, Emory University addressed the phenomena of “The Transcendent” (the yearned for, the more than, the beyond, the better, the above) by having a seminar involving all doctoral students, each Wednesday with a scholar in a different academic field. When my turn came, I was delighted with the students’ eagerness, even excitement. Through all generations, this reach of the human spirit is as real as the flow of human flesh.

3.....Obama makes judicious oratorical use of all three language-levels. He is a master of constitutional law, which is top-level “secular,” as is the Constitution (which is unique, among America’s founding documents in having no “sacred,” religious language [except its reference to Jesus in its closing date, “in the year of our Lord”]). As a member of a Chicago church that I know well, he speaks “sacred,” specifically Christian. And he’s most moving when he speaks “homey.”

4.....Of course orators are dangerous. When in 1933 Hitler came to power, by short-wave radio I listened to his orations. His ranting denunciations and “blood and soil” aggressiveness were spine-chilling. Through their orators, we can see into their souls. Nobody’s perfect; but the soul I see in Obama’s orations is good, and intending the good of all, including God’s good earth.

5.....Also in 1933, the Humanist Manifesto began a successful drive to exclude religion from America’s public schools and to teach secular humanism instead (collapsing transcendence into immanence). One result is the “What good is it?” attitude of many Americans toward religion - the “good” meaning human flourishing in the material world. Of course all religions intend human good, but each within the sphere of its particular way of seeing and living in the world; and the good intended is totalgood, not merely material good.

6.....How one sees the world/reality is “reflected in policy positions and campaign tactics.” Faith informs principles, principles inform policies/strategy/tactics. Since a religion is a way of seeing and living in the world, every candidate’s religion – in providing both a point of view and a depth of view – influences thinking/deciding/acting in every sphere of life, including politics. Obama is a Christian. The Constitution makes clear that there should be no “religious test” for the office. But (to some extent) all of America’s presidents have been Christians.

7.....Those tempted to believe that oratory is dead in the U.S. got a surprise this time around. The orator’s functions are to inspire/unite/lead the people. They inspire as they move easily between immanence (the flatland of human problems) and transcendence (aspiration and hope: “without vision, the people perish”). They unite by reminding the people of the principles in their founding as a people, and by reinvigorating the common faith (America’s “civil religion”) which continues to feed those principles. And they lead as they embody that faith’s living principles. Among the candidates, only Obama has what it takes.