Spiritual perestroika

Obama has stopped going to church, Gorbachev may have just begun.

The professed and indeed ostentatious Christianity of America’s Presidents is well known. With the single exception of the Catholic John Kennedy, all have been Protestants and there is not an admitted atheist among them.

Being occasionally photographed coming out of church on Sunday – ideally holding the hand of a small and innocent daughter – almost seems part of the American presidential job description. It simply comes with the territory. It can also be a source of trouble, as Barack Obama discovered in 2008, during his first presidential campaign, when he stumbled into a media firestorm over the views of the pastor of his Chicago church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

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