THIS GREAT PRAYERFUL TRADITION: AMERICAN PRESIDENTS PREACHING PUBLIC THEOLOGY AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST ________________________________________ A Dissertation presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School University of Missouri ________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy ________________________________________ by CATHY ELLEN ROSENHOLTZ Dr. Rebecca J. Meisenbach, Dissertation Supervisor May 2018 © Copyright by Cathy Ellen Rosenholtz 2018 All rights reserved The undersigned, appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School, have examined this dissertation entitled THIS GREAT PRAYERFUL TRADITION: AMERICAN PRESIDENTS PREACHING PUBLIC THEOLOGY AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST Presented by Cathy Ellen Rosenholtz a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. ____________________________________ Dr. Rebecca J. Meisenbach ___________________________________ Dr. Mitchell S. McKinney __________________________________ Dr. Benjamin R. Warner __________________________________ Dr. Debra L. Mason In thanksgiving to God, who speaks the Word of new life in many and various ways, whose Love renews the universe and calls us into the beloved community, I dedicate this dissertation to the memory of Mitchell J. Rosenholtz Sandy Rathbun Rosenholtz and Liz Schmidt. Solo Dei Gloria ROSENHOLTZ DISSERTATION ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation began as the seed of an idea in Dr. Mitchell McKinney’s Rhetorical Presidency class in 2011. I am grateful to him for his enthusiasm for the topic, and for his guidance throughout my program at Mizzou. Coming back to school at midlife and discovering such a wonderful faculty in the Department of Communication was a blessing. I am thankful for each person with whom I studied, and for the opportunity to learn a new field. Encountering such a great community of people in the department and across the university widened my experience of my hometown, and studying with them gave me new language to conceptualize intriguing areas of inquiry both old and new. I have been grateful to bring together the work I have done here with my ongoing service as an ordained minister, and I have also been deeply appreciative of the way the department allowed me to function as a non-traditional student with substantial outside commitments to family and vocation. Perhaps ironically for a communication scholar and preacher, I will freely acknowledge that words are not sufficient to express my depth of gratitude to Dr. Rebecca Meisenbach, my dissertation advisor. Her dedication to getting me through this process made completing the project possible – I literally could not have done it without her. Beyond her direct help to me, though, Dr. Meisenbach has been a model of intellectual inquiry, excellent teaching, careful advising, and passion for her field that has been a true blessing and inspiration. You rock, Wonder Woman! Throughout the time of my graduate program, I was blessed to be home in Columbia for my parents’ final years, and to be in the midst of a deep and wide community of support. I am so thankful to my husband Fred Schmidt, to our families, ROSENHOLTZ DISSERTATION iii many of whom are now gone, and to our circle of friends. In addition, the congregations of Calvary Episcopal Church, Columbia, where I served as Associate, and Augustana Lutheran Church, Washington, DC, where I am now Senior Pastor, have been amazingly generous with time, genuine interest and enthusiasm for my studies and especially this project, and the gracious willingness to allow me the space to complete the requirements for the doctorate. As I complete my time at Mizzou, and put the final touches on this dissertation, I want to express my gratitude to my entire doctoral committee: Dr. Rebecca Meisenbach, Dr. Mitchell McKinney, Dr. Benjamin Warner, and Dr. Debra Mason. I have deeply appreciated their guidance, conversation, and wisdom throughout the process of conceptualizing, writing, and editing this document. Talking about this project with them has been a joy, and I look forward to staying in touch about the book! ROSENHOLTZ DISSERTATION iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE ..................................................... 1 The Rationale for a Cross-disciplinary Approach .................................................................... 7 Communication as a Porous Field ...................................................................... 7 Religious Conviction and Public Dialogue ......................................................... 8 Situating this Dissertation at the Dialogic Intersection..................................... 11 Approaching Presidential Religious Speech: Defining Central Concepts .............................. 12 Civil Religion and the Civil-Religious Contract ........................................... 13 Defining Public Theology ............................................................................. 15 The National Prayer Breakfast ................................................................................................ 17 Summary of Project Rationale ................................................................................................ 20 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 23 The President as High Priest of American Civil Religion ...................................................... 23 Civil Religion in America ................................................................................. 24 Civil Religion Scholarship on Presidential Religious Speech .......................... 28 Civil Religion Scholarship on Individual Presidents ........................................ 29 President Clinton ........................................................................................... 30 President George W. Bush ............................................................................ 32 ROSENHOLTZ DISSERTATION v President Obama ........................................................................................... 33 The Limits of a Civil Religion Approach ......................................................... 35 Religious Speech as Political Tool ......................................................................................... 36 Hart's Civil-Religious Contract ......................................................................... 38 Uncivil Religion: Divisive Religious Appeals as Weapon ............................... 41 The Power and Limits of an Instrumental Approach to Religious Speech in Presidential Politics ....................................................................................................... 46 Moving Towards a Theological Reading of Presidential Religious Speech ........................... 53 Medhurst on the Importance of Religion in Public Life ................................... 54 Does Welcoming Religious Voices Mean Being Uncritical? ........................... 58 Rhetorical-Theological Scholarship on Presidential Religious Speech ............ 60 Heads of State as Public Theologians ............................................................... 66 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 68 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................... 70 Methodological Approaches and Philosophical Entailments ................................................. 70 Public Theology, Homiletics, and Divine Communicative Agency ................. 71 The Rhetorical Presidency: the President as Interpretive Agent ...................... 75 The President as Post-modern Pastiche ........................................................ 77 The Fragmentation of the Second Persona: Postmodern Publics and the Hermeneutic Influence of Community ..................................................................... 78 ROSENHOLTZ DISSERTATION vi Towards a New Genre of Presidential Speech? ...................................................................... 79 Selection of Texts and Methods .............................................................................................. 83 Examining the Public Theology of the Speeches: Homiletical Methods ......... 84 Rhetorical Methods ........................................................................................... 87 Conclusion: A New Genre? ..................................................................................................... 91 CHAPTER FOUR: PRAYING AND MEETING “IN THE SPIRIT OF JESUS”: THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST AS RHETORICAL CONTEXT ............................... 93 History and Development of the National Prayer Breakfast .................................................. 94 Beginnings: the 1953 Prayer Breakfast............................................................. 95 The Growth and Development of the Prayer Breakfast .................................... 96 The National Prayer Breakfast Program Structure and Ritual Language ............................. 101 The National Prayer Breakfast Program “Ritual” ..........................................