Is America ready for a non-Christian president?
The answer seems to be No. Then is it advisable for Rep Tulsi Gabbard, a practicing Hindu, to spend her time for something that is not achievable in the near future?
It is no good to be vague just to please others or being politically correct. We have to face the ground reality as it is.
A Google search has found that there was no non-Christian ever elected president in the last 240 years. All were Christians, believing or not.
See what Wikipedia says:
‘The religious affiliations of Presidents of the United States can affect their electability, shape their stances on policy matters and their visions of society and also how they want to lead it. Speculation of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and William Howard Taft being atheists was reported during election campaigns, while others, such as Jimmy Carter, used faith as a defining aspect of their campaigns and tenure to hold the office.
Almost all of the presidents can be characterized as Christian, at least by upbringing, though some were unaffiliated with any specific religious body. Protestants predominate, with Episcopalians and Presbyterians being the most prevalent.
There have been four non-Trinitarian presidents, and a single Roman Catholic president (John F Kennedy), although Catholics are currently the largest single denomination. No president thus far has been openly an atheist. However, it has been acknowledged that two US presidents—Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Johnson—had no religious affiliation.’
All the vice presidents too were Christian. Two Catholics were among the VPs – one was Joe Biden, who has just announced his candidacy for president.
In 2000, Al Gore, the Democratic candidate who ran against George W Bush, took Senator Joe Lieberman, a Jew, as the running mate. Many believe that it affected Al Gore’s chances negatively.
In 2008, Barack Obama was accused of being a Muslim, a claim he denied and which the voters ignored.
If religious identity is that important, how can Rep Gabbard overcome the obstacles? Moreover, she is accused of having links to the right wing in India, especially the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Her relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also well known.
There was a protest against her ties to the right wing in Los Angeles earlier this month. She termed the opposition as Hinduphobia, though she did not elaborate on her relations to right-wing Hindu group. She said, ‘I am a solder, and I took an oath. One oath in my life. That was an oath to serve and protect this country, to put my life on the line for the people of this county.
‘We stand for aloha, we stand for diversity, we stand for peace. Thank you everybody for standing with me. It is this kind of attacks that are rooted in religious bigotry that we must stand together and condemn.’
The protesters were not satisfied with the answer. (see the report at https://sikhsiyasat.net/2019/04/03/u-s-presidential-candidate-tulsi-gabbard-faces-protests-for-ties-with-hindutva-fountainhead-rss/)
Senator Kamala Harris is Christian, but her mother was a Hindu Brahmin. No one has so far spoken about her religious beliefs. Yet some Christians were upset at her intense questioning of then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, even asking about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, an insignificant organization. It was surprising she did not know the true nature of Knights of Columbus…
Another contender, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is gay, which is not acceptable to many Christians.
As for abortion, while most of the candidates support it, Catholics and conservatives oppose its unrestrained use, especially late term abortions. Recently, New York State passed a law to liberalize abortion, which was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic. New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan came out strongly against it.
Legalizing marijuana has become another policy matter. Most of the Democratic contenders support it.
In 2012, Mitt Romney, current US senator from Utah and former governor of Massachusetts, was the Republican candidate, who lost to President Obama. Romney is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), a group popularly known as the Mormons. Though it is a religion that originated in America in the 19th century, many Christians do not consider it as a traditional Christian church.
According to Wikipedia, ‘Most presidents have been formal members of a particular church or religious body, and a specific affiliation can be assigned to every president from James A Garfield on. For many earlier presidents, however, formal church membership was forestalled until they left office; and in several cases a president never joined any church. Conversely, though every president from George Washington to John Quincy Adams can be definitely assigned membership in an Anglican or Unitarian body, the significance of these affiliations is often downplayed as unrepresentative of their true beliefs.
‘The pattern of religious adherence has changed dramatically over the course of United States history, so that the pattern of presidential affiliations is quite unrepresentative of modern membership numbers. For example, Episcopalians are extraordinarily well represented among the presidents compared to a current membership of about 2% of the population; this is partly because the Church of England, from which the Episcopal Church is derived, was the established church in some of the British colonies (such as New York and Virginia) before the American Revolution. The Episcopal Church has been much larger previously, with its decline in membership occurring only in more recent decades. The first seven presidents listed as Episcopalians were all from Virginia. Unitarians are also overrepresented, reflecting the importance of those colonial churches. Conversely, Baptists are underrepresented, a reflection of their quite recent expansion in numbers; there has been only one Catholic president, although they are currently the largest single denomination, and there have been no Adventist, Anabaptist, Lutheran, Orthodox, Pentecostal, or Latter Day Saint presidents.
‘Two presidents were Quakers (Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon) and information about their religion is harder to come by. Quakerism is, by its nature, not circumscribed by doctrines, but even so it is hard to determine whether either Hoover or Nixon had much adherence even to Quaker practice. For instance, it is common among Quakers to refuse to swear oaths; however, recordings show that Nixon did swear the oath of office in the conventional manner in all cases, and while the matter is clouded for Hoover, there is newspaper and circumstantial evidence that he did likewise. While Abraham Lincoln never officially joined a church, there has been some research indicating that he may have had Quaker leanings. During his time in office, he had numerous meetings with Quakers and had investigated a supposed Quaker ancestry.
‘The only other president with any association with a definitely non-Trinitarian body is Dwight D Eisenhower, whose parents moved from the River Brethren to the antecedents of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Eisenhower himself was baptized in the Presbyterian church shortly after assuming the presidency, the only president thus far to undergo such a rite while in office; and his attendance at West Point was in sharp opposition to the tenets of the groups to which his parents belonged.’
