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| God in the White House: A History: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush | 
 enlarge | Author: Randall Balmer
Publisher: HarperOne
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (7 reviews)
Sales Rank: 160971
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060734051
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.099
EAN: 9780060734053
ASIN: 0060734051
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
Release Date: January 22, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
How did we go from John F. Kennedy declaring that religion should play no role in the elections to Bush saying, "I believe that God wants me to be president"? Historian Randall Balmer takes us on a tour of presidential religiosity in the last half of the twentieth century?from Kennedy's 1960 speech that proposed an almost absolute wall between American political and religious life to the soft religiosity of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society; from Richard Nixon's manipulation of religion to fit his own needs to Gerald Ford's quiet stoicism; from Jimmy Carter's introduction of evangelicalism into the mainstream to Ronald Reagan's co-option of the same group; from Bill Clinton's covert way of turning religion into a non-issue to George W. Bush's overt Christian messages, Balmer reveals the role religion has played in the personal and political lives of these American presidents. Americans were once content to disregard religion as a criterion for voting, as in most of the modern presidential elections before Jimmy Carter.But today's voters have come to expect candidates to fully disclose their religious views and to deeply illustrate their personal relationship to the Almighty. God in the White House explores the paradox of Americans' expectation that presidents should simultaneously trumpet their religious views and relationship to God while supporting the separation of church and state. Balmer tells the story of the politicization of religion in the last half of the twentieth century, as well as the "religionization" of our politics. He reflects on the implications of this shift, which have reverberated in both our religious and political worlds, and offers a new lens through which to see not only these extraordinary individuals, but also our current political situation.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Distasteful July 8, 2008
0 out of 8 found this review helpful
The cover of the book presents an interesting subject - how faith shapes politics.
Unfortunately, the pages of the book are littered with Randall Balmer's liberal biases that crescendo into a grande finale attack on George Bush, his policies and faith. The book's subtext becomes politics (Balmer's) shaping a discussion on faith, not vice versa. The book is more "his story" than "A History". Balmer uses a plethora of references from The New York Times and other books, including his own. I got tired of looking to the bottom of the page after every reference! The book lacks depth, covering only certain issues from each administration (e.g. focus on GWB Administration's Iraq War with no mention of Faith-Based & Community Initiatives). The book left a bad taste in my mouth, like eating cereal with spoiled milk!
It's no surprise the author claims drinking beer during the day as one of his favorite activities; not reading the Bible or prayer as you might expect from a minister and teacher of divinity.
Nothing divine here.
Not totally objective (as the author admits) but probably fair June 22, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The PUBLISHERS WEEKLY reviewer quoted on this page identifies the ways that this book can be faulted but does not mention that the author identifies his bias in the preface and says that he seeks to be fair. The two main strengths of the book are 1) Balmer's knowledge of political history and evangelical history (these emerge in the well documented and not very flattering accounts that he gives about Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham at points in the book) and 2) his conclusions about the shallowness of American religion (in spite of its proclamations of holiness) and the need for voters and the media to be more rigorous in its expectations for candidates who try to use religion as a way to garner votes. After GWB announced that Jesus was his favorite philosopher in the 2000 primary season, Balmer suggests (p. 169) that an alert press person might have asked him: "Mr. Bush, Jesus demands in the Sermon on the Mount that his followers 'turn the other cheek.' How will that teaching guide your conduct of American foreign policy, especially in the event of, say, an attack on the United States?"
 FASCINATING! May 23, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
GOD IN THE WHITE HOUSE: HOW FAITH SHAPED THE PRESIDENCY FROM JOHN F. KENNEDY TO GEORGE BUSH W. BUSH is a fascinating, wonderful introduction to an important topic. Let the work speak for itself. What follows are selected sections from Randall Balmer's book. In a few places I have taken the liberty of conflating quotes from two or more parts of the book, but I have remained faithful to the author's argument.
Balmer labels himself "an evangelical Christian whose understanding of the teachings of Jesus points him toward the left of the political spectrum." He is "no fan of the Religious Right, whose leaders, [he] believe[s] have distorted the gospel - the 'good news' - of the New Testament and have defaulted on the noble legacy of nineteenth-century evangelical activism, which invariably took the part of those less fortunate."
"This book aspires to answer a relatively simple question: How did we get from John F. Kennedy's eloquent speech at the Rice Hotel in Houston on September 12, 1960, in which he urged voters effectively to bracket a candidate's faith out of their considerations when they entered the voting booth, to George W. Bush's declaration on the eve of the 2000 Iowa precinct caucuses that Jesus was his favorite philosopher? Americans were content to disregard religion as a criterion for voting in 1960, whereas by 2004 they had come to expect candidates fully to disclose their religious beliefs and to expound on their personal relationship to the Almighty. This book attempts to trace that transition."
Balmer "offer[s] ... a narrative that tells the story not only of the politicization of religion in the final decades of the twentieth-century, but also the 'religionization' of our politics."
Balmer is "not arguing ... that people of faith should not be involved in the political process. Far from it. [He] happen[s] to believe that the arena of public discourse would be impoverished without voices of faith. And, although [he] [doesn't] think it's necessary, [he] [has] no particular problem with political candidates offering their religious views to public scrutiny. At the same time, however, [he] think[s] there is a real danger to the integrity of the faith when it is aligned too closely with a particular movement or political party, because the faith then loses its prophetic voice. [His] reading of American religious history suggests that religion always functions best from the margins of society and not in the councils of power. Once you identify the faith with a particular candidate or party or with the quest for political influence, ultimately it is the faith that suffers."
"Does a candidate's faith or even his moral character make any substantive difference in how he governs? Does probity translate into policy? [T]he quest for moral rectitude in presidential candidates may be chimerical. The candidates' declarations of faith over the past several decades provide a fairly poor indicator of how they govern. There is, in short, no direct correlation between probity and policy. The lesson of the final decades of the twentieth-century is that voters should approach candidates' professions of faith with more than a little suspicion. Too often, the vetting of a candidate's religion has diverted our attention from other important questions."
"Perhaps it's time to shift our attention away from the candidates and toward the electorate. What is it we expect from our presidents? Do we look for charisma and political skills, experience in foreign and domestic policy, and administrative competence? Or do we demand that candidates for the White House pass some sort of catechetical test? It's not an either-or proposition, of course, but the record of the last four decades of the twentieth-century suggests that we've moved toward the latter and away from the former."
"But at what cost? The president of the United States is not a high priest. He or she is commander-in-chief, not pastor-in-chief. Surely it's legitimate to consider a candidate's faith (or lack of same) as an insight into his character, but it should be only one of many considerations. To put it in the starkest terms, when I enter an operating room or board an airplane, my primary consideration is whether the surgeon or the pilot is competent; if I learn that she attended church or synagogue the previous weekend I might like her better, perhaps, or be more inclined to strike up a conversation. But my principal concern is her ability to perform the task I've asked her to do."
"Perhaps it's inevitable that in the United States, which has no religious establishment, we look to the president as a kind of moral figurehead, the sum total of our projections about the supposed goodness and honor and moral superiority of America and Americans. We expect the president to be the vicarious embodiment of the myths we have constructed about the United States of America."
"But no one - not John F. Kennedy or Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush - can shoulder that burden. It's too much to ask of any mortal to be the repository of our collective projections, especially when our assessment of America's standing in the world and our aggregate moral character is so inflated. And yet politicians continually invite us to see them as embodiments of our supposed virtue. They assure us that we Americans are good and moral and decent people, and we need only to elect a good and moral and decent president and all will be well. Foolishly, naively, we play along."
"And we play along with this cycle of sin and redemption because it offers a kind of cheap grace. We turned to Jimmy Carter in 1976 to purge the nation of Nixon's sins but also to absolve ourselves of complicity. Simply by casting a vote, we could put the whole sordid matter behind us and not trouble ourselves with nettlesome questions about why we, the electorate, elevated Nixon to the White House in the first place. Here was a man whose entire career was littered with dirty tricks and shady dealings, most of which were well known to American voters. Here was a man who seriously compromised civil liberties and who massively escalated the ruinous war in Vietnam. Yet not only did we elect him president in 1968, we returned him overwhelmingly to office four years later. These circumstances raise serious questions about the American voters who put Nixon in office and allowed him to remain there. Simply pulling the lever for Carter in 1976, however, allowed us to evade those questions. Cheap grace."
"Bill Clinton's history of philandering was hardly a secret when he ran for president in 1992, but the salacious revelations of his sexual behavior in the White House made most Americans squirm. Rather than ask ourselves difficult questions about our collective tolerance for sexual license and promiscuity in American society, transitory relationships, the endless barrage of sexually themed messages on television, or the easy availability of pornography, we simply pulled the lever for George W. Bush, who offered vague promises about restoring integrity to the White House. Cheap grace,"
"Among a people who claim overwhelmingly to be Christian, and in a nation where well over 90 percent of us tell pollsters that we believe in God or a Supreme Being, it is no wonder that politicians clamor to speak the language of faith. For many of those politicians, perhaps, the sentiments are sincere; for others, however, considering their actions once in office, the claims seem questionable."
"The unwillingness of voters to interrogate those claims and to hold candidates and presidents accountable for their professions of piety, however, renders the rhetoric of religion on the campaign trail meaningless. The problem of religiously inflected political rhetoric, it seems, lies not so much with the politicians as with the populace. We allow politicians to hypnotize us with lullabies about faith and morality, and then we fail to take that rhetoric seriously, much less hold them to the principles they articulate so blithely."
"What does this say about us, the voters? I think it suggests that we, too, talk a good game about faith and religion and morality, but the rhetoric fails to match the reality. [I]t seems ... that our collective affirmations of faith are no more sincere than those of our politicians. The American form of government purports to be a 'representative democracy.' That claim elicits all manner of cynicism these days, especially as politicians cavort shamelessly with corporations and moneyed interests in order to finance their elections and re-elections. But on matters of faith, sadly, the United States may well be a representative democracy: The vacuous declarations of faith we hear from our politicians echo our own vacuous declarations of faith. Perhaps our insistence on demanding piety and probity from our politicians is a measure of the deficiency of both we sense in ourselves."
"If we insist on regarding ourselves as a religious people, if we persist in making claims for our nation's moral superiority, then we must hold ourselves and our nation accountable to the values we espouse. Otherwise, we should drop all pretense of piety, political or otherwise. If we want to view ourselves as a religios people, however, it's not sufficient merely to allow politicians to function as the vicarious projections of our faith. We have to engage in the arduous work of living up to our professed ideals, both individually and collectively. Anything less is cheap grace."
One need not accept or agree with Balmer's interpretations and conclusions to enjoy this book. It is fascinating for the history it contains and for line it takes. Though Balmer labels himself an "evangelical," he does present favorably throughout the Roman Catholic Church. The author is critical of many fellow evangelical Christians, and if there is one person who is singled out as "THE BAD GUY," I would have to say that it is - by a wide margin - Billy Graham! The documented "behind the scenes"/"Back-room political maneuverings" described in this book are eye-opening! And, though I won't quote any of the particulars regarding any one the presidents covered here, I will tell you that there are some surprising revelations that, though a matter of public record, have been long forgotten by those of us who are older and are not likely known by those of you who are younger. You might really enjoy this book. It is a quick read.
Included as appendixes are the texts of seven speeches : one each by JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.
Hypocrisy and vacuousness of Presidential church-state mixing exposed May 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Jimmy Carter? Likely the most decent, moral and religiously active president of the last 50 years. Yet, ditched by the Religious Right.
And, not because of abortion. But, because the Religious Right wanted segregated Southern private schools to keep tax exempt status, even as they saw the handwriting on the wall for Bob Jones University.
That's the biggest debunking of conventional wisdom you'll find in this slim volume.
Normally, I don't five-star books this size, but, this one is on the 4/5 star border and deserves the bump.
Randall Ballmer does an excellent, nonpartisan job of looking at how faith and presidential politics have mixed from the 1960 campaign, in which John Kennedy defended the right of a Catholic to run for the White House, up through George Bush's talking about the immorality of abortion without doing anything about it, while claiming moral stature for torture.
That, then, leads to one of two highlights of this book.
Ballmer lists sample questions the mainstream media should have asked presidential candidates of the past, both liberal and conservative politically or religiously, both Democratic and Republican. Specifically, these are follow-up questions the MSM should have asked presidential candidates of the past after particular faith-based statements.
In these sample questions, Ballmer said the MSM should have asked Bush just how he squared abortion talk with lack of action, or how Clinton squared Baptist piety with Monica Lewinsky. That fact, right there, belies one current three-star rater, and others to come, who claim Ballmer doesn't know what he is talking about just because his definition of "evangelical" isn't limited to "conservative, Republican-voting evangelical."
The second special area is major religion-related speeches of modern presidents, from Kennedy's legendary talk to the Houston Ministerial Association, to LBJ's "Great Society" speech, on to Ford's defense -- with his mentioning of the role of prayer and faith -- in his pardon of Nixon, through Carter's "crisis of confidence" (NOT "malaise") speech, Reagan on the Statue of Liberty centennial, Clinton on presenting Billy Graham the Congressional Medal of Honor, and George W. Bush on 9/11.
 somewhat politically slanted March 3, 2008
2 out of 22 found this review helpful
The perspective of the author is that of a liberal protestant with little understanding of genuine faith as described in the Bible. His lack of understanding causes him to denigrate what he doesn't understand. It is a perspective that has some value in causing one to consider the relationship of faith and public life.
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