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Scholars assume that religious values, attitudes, and discourses have shaped American politics since the founding era despite official adherence to the principle of church-state separation. Many presidents have used religious symbolism and rhetoric as a political strategy for electoral gain, to influence public policy, and to justify military action. Presidents are also widely viewed as the "high priests" of America's "civil religion" because they perpetuate the widely shared American perception that God has particularly blessed the United States (Bellah 1967). Nevertheless, our knowledge about the nature and role of religious rhetoric is extremely limited at this time. Religion and politics scholars and sociologists of religion alike often assume that religion influences presidential leadership, but their assumption has not been subjected to rigorous empirical testing. Moreover, presidential scholars have ignored the role of religion on the American presidency. Our paper marks the beginning of a major study of the ways in which presidents strategically employ religious rhetoric. We are principally concerned with the question of whether and how the use of religious rhetoric by presidents hasvaried over time. In this paper, we begin the process of analyzing presidential rhetoric by assessing the use of substantive and symbolic religious rhetoric in the public speeches and statements made by Ronald Reagan during his two terms in office, 1981-1989. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars assume that religious values, attitudes, and discourses have shaped American politics since the founding era despite official adherence to the principle of church-state separation. Many presidents have used religious symbolism and rhetoric as a political strategy for electoral gain, to influence public policy, and to justify military action. Presidents are also widely viewed as the "high priests" of America's "civil religion," because they perpetuate the widely shared American perception that God has particularly blessed the United States (Bellah 1967). Nevertheless, our knowledge about the nature and role of religious rhetoric is extremely limited at this time. Religion and politics scholars and sociologists often assume that religion influences presidential leadership, but their assumption has not been subjected to rigorous empirical testing. Moreover, presidency scholars have ignored the role of religion on the American presidency. Our paper marks the beginning of a major study of the ways in which presidents strategically employ religious rhetoric. We are principally concerned with the question of whether and how the use of religious rhetoric by presidents has varied over time. In this paper, we begin the process of analyzing presidential rhetoric by assessing the use of substantive and symbolic religious rhetoric in the public speeches and statements made by Ronald Reagan during his first term in office, 1981-1984. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the impact of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on U.S. politics and religion. Factors which motivated U.S. citizens to participate in civic engagement immediately following the attacks; Relevance of personal religiosity and conservative religious attitudes to U.S. President George W. Bush's leadership; Significant effects of religion and patriotism on civic engagement.

Building on recent political party affiliation theory and social identity theory, we test whether meaningful cleavages exist in public attitudes toward various identifiable issue-oriented groups, and whether such cleavages affect political behavior. We use 2004 American National Election Studies data to search for two kinds of issue interest group cleavages. We then examine whether affiliation with these cleavages mobilizes higher levels of participation and whether cleavage affiliation influences evaluations of presidential candidates. We find affiliation with some cleavages mobilizes higher levels of participation. Affiliation with cleavages exerts even stronger influences on evaluations of candidates. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clergy are uniquely situated both to shape the interplay of religion and politics in the United States and to mobilize others to take action to address political and social problems. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the factors that underlie attempts by clergy in four mainline Protestant denominations to mobilize their congregations to pursue policy-relevant programming within the church, with special attention given to the ways in which gender influences these attempts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]