Obama as messiah

Q: In the Weekly Standard, University of Virginia professor James. W. Ceaser argues that President Obama's approval ratings are suffering, in part, because Obama has been cast as a secular savior by people who are trying to "replace God with the Religion of Humanity." Ceaser writes: "Being the leader of humanity is incompatible with being the president of the United States. No man can serve two masters."

Do we expect our presidents to be spiritual leaders as well as political leaders? Can they be? Should they be?

There are two connected but distinct issues at play here. The first deals with the way Americans look at presidents in general, and the second is the way many look at President Obama specifically. The first has fluctuated from president to president and has been influenced to a large extent by the personalities of the office holder and the historical situations during which they have ruled. The second has much to do with the media driven personality cult surrounding Obama, the president's own words, and how he and his followers have chosen to define him.

From infancy, human nature is such that many of us find comfort in having a powerful parental figure to protect us, guide us, care for us, and supply our needs. In times of stress, then, it is natural for us to seek out someone to solve our problems. Those who are deeply religious look for divine guidance and protection and typically turn to prayer. Those who place little or no stock in that approach tend to gravitate to politicians and the government as their secular "saviors." After all, most of us want someone with answers and solutions to our problems and the power to fix them, someone who can save us from the messes in which we find ourselves.

However, our collective relationship with and respect for the presidency has gone through a difficult half century. It began with Richard Nixon and the events that caused him to resign. Many came to distrust the office, and that feeling was enhanced when Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor a month after taking his oath. Jimmy Carter was generally trusted but was seen as weak and failed to gain much respect. He lasted a single term. Although Ronald Reagan's reputation has fared better in reflection over since his retirement, there were many in the country who openly despised him at the time he was president. George Bush Sr. made the fatal mistake of going back on his "no new taxes" pledge, so he also only lasted one term. During the tenure of Bill Clinton, a new level of cynicism and distaste for the presidency arose in a significant number of Americans who had up to that point retained a level of respect for the office. Finally, George W. Bush became president in a cloud of doubt over the legitimacy of the election. The wars and various controversies of his two terms led to Obama's victory in a wave of "anybody but Bush (or anyone like him)." Americans were sick of what the presidency had become in their eyes and longed for someone they could believe in, someone they could look up to, someone who would be a respectable and worthwhile leader and "father of the nation."

The stage was set for Obama to swoop America off its collective feet, a stage with divine overtones that started to be built several years before the election. As early as January 2007, Slate.com ran an article entitled "The Obama Messiah Watch." While there was a clear tongue-in-cheek aspect to the article, it is also clear that the concept existed even before Obama declared his candidacy for president, and the media did much to give it life. In early 2008, Chris Matthews of MSNBC gushed that Obama, "...seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament." The following week, after listening to one of Obama's speeches, he admitted, "I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often." At about the same time, Ezra Klein wrote in the American Prospect regarding Obama, "He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh." There were a variety of other statements by and about Obama during the presidential campaign that used adulatory and even messianic style language. The president himself made comments such as one at Dartmouth College in January 2008, "... a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama." He knew well what people wanted. We wanted change, and he promised it. We wanted hope, and he promised it. We wanted someone to "save" us from the military and economic quagmires in which we seemed to be ensnared, and he presented himself as our savior. For most American voters, he was convincing.

Before the election, I heard and read of various people referring to him as America's and the world's savior. I never heard such comments about any previous president in my lifetime. Thus, Obama's situation is unique, and the reasons have much to do with the increasing secularism of public thinking coupled with the frustration leading up to his election that our government was heading in the wrong direction. We needed a secular messianic-style leader to "save" us from all our problems. Obama and his supporters saw the situation taking shape and fashioned him to fit the need. One can sense a kind of self-promotion along those lines early on in his presidential campaign. This is obvious in many of his words, including those at Dartmouth and his famous Super Tuesday speech a month later. He declared unequivocally, "...we are the ones we've been waiting for. . . a chorus that cannot be ignored, that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world." This could have just as easily been part of a church sermon, and many who heard the words seem to have hoped at the time he was actually meaning "I am the one you've been waiting for, and praying for." For them, his election was more of a divine anointment.

In June, 2009, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas made a comment that was reflective of that same attitude. Thomas was being interviewed by Matthews on MSNBC about the president and stated, "I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world, he's sort of God." He also observed that "Reagan was all about America" but that Obama is "above that now."

The reality is that Obama is, and all of our presidents have been, human. None have walked on water or raised the dead. None are or have been perfect. All share with us the same human imperfections that create the problems we have, so it is naive to think that our presidents, or any other politician, can somehow float on a divine cloud above all the temptations, desires, fears, and prejudices that infect society as a whole, especially considering all the back room deals they likely made to get elected in the first place and all the corrupting power they get once in office. As Sir John Dalberg-Acton wrote more than a hundred years ago regarding the issue of connecting divine power with worldly power, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Nothing has changed.

At best, our presidents and politicians are individuals who, in spite of their imperfections, attempt to help make our country and the world a better place as so many apolitical people do on a daily basis. We need to stop looking for elected or appointed messiahs to solve our problems and instead try to work individually and collectively to do it ourselves, and in the process make the world more peaceful, just, and compassionate in everything we do. As we put forth effort in that direction, if a politician appears who can aid in that goal by inspiring us to work together instead of dividing us by party or ideology, then well and good. However, I am not holding my breath.

By Ramdas Lamb | January 28, 2010; 2:59 AM ET Save & Share:
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