The Bible in American Law and Politics. John R. Vile
preferring to put their hand on the Constitution or another legal text.
In a study of the National Prayer Breakfast, Jonathan Peterson observes that President Clinton was the first to refer specifically to a text other than the Bible when he referred to a version of the Golden Rule in the Koran and to its teaching “that God created nations and tribes that we might know one another, not that we might despise one another” (2017, 220). Similarly, at the Prayer Breakfast in 2014, President Obama observed that “the Koran instructs: ‘Stand out firmly for justice’” (220).
Within the U.S. context, there are some religions, which have had impacts on U.S. politics, that have relied on supplemental texts. They arose within what Lydia Willsky identifies as a “plain Bible” culture, which she associates with “three mutually reinforcing assumptions,” namely “that the Bible was clear in meaning, persuasive in message and authoritative in truth claims” (2014, 15). These assumptions were, in turn, often tied to Common Scottish Sense philosophy, which had taught “that truth was knowable through the senses, and that inductive reasoning from observation was the best means for gaining knowledge of truth” (Willsky 2014, 17).
Joseph Smith (1804–1844) questioned this view as he observed the wide variety of interpretations of the same Scripture. Interestingly, by his own account, it was this very Scripture that pointed to a solution. After reading James 1:5, which states, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (cited in Willsky 2014, 19), Smith began to do so. He eventually had a number of revelations that led, by his account, to the translation of golden plates, which he interpreted through two stones called the Urim and Thummin, which were themselves biblical names (Samuel 14:41 and Exodus 28:13–30). In addition to the Book of Mormon, which was first published in 1830, Smith later added the Doctrine and Covenants (1835) and a Book of Abraham (1842), all of which were written in King James English. Somewhat later, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints added his Inspired Version of the Bible, which not only reinterpreted but sometimes added to that Document Scriptures (like revelations to Enoch) that he thought had been lost. In studying this document, Philip Barlow observes that Smith’s alterations fell into a number of distinct categories: “long additions that have little or no biblical parallel”; “theological change”; “interpretive additions”; “harmonization”; “grammatical changes, technical clarifications, and modernization of terms” (1990, 55–57). Philip Barlow believes that Smith “was an authentic, nineteenth-century, Bible-believing Christian” but that he was distinctive in that he was not convinced of the Bible’s “sufficiency” (1989, 762).
Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) added yet another book that has served Christian Scientists when she authored Science and Health, which seeks to exegete Scriptures by interpreting them in a more spiritualistic fashion. Eddy, too, appears to have been launched on her quest while reading on a hospital bed the words of Matthew 9:2: “And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of palsy, 21lying on a bed: and Jesus, seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy: Son, be of good cheer: thy sins be forgiven them” (quoted in Willsky 2014, 24). This document often quoted from the Scriptures that it sought to interpret.
Seventh Day Adventists, which grew out of the millennial Millerite movement, and who argue that Christians should honor Saturday, rather than Sunday, as the Sabbath, accept the writings of Ellen G. White (1827–1915) as prophetic. They included commentaries on the Old and New Testaments as well as the life of Christ.
A non-Christian religious book that has enjoyed considerable success since its initial publication in 1950 is L. Ron Hubbard’s (1911–1986) Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This has become the bedrock for Scientology. Another book that was published soon thereafter was Sun-Myung Moon’s The Divine Principle, which is a central text for the Unification Church (Gutjahr 2001, 353–54). From quite a different perspective, Anton Szazndor LaVey published The Satanic Bible in 1969 (Gallagher 2013).
Willsky points out that the writer Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), usually identified with the New England transcendentalist movement, took the idea of Scriptures to yet another level when in 1859 he authored a personal bible entitled Wild Fruits that was not widely known until its publication in 2000. Unlike the Mormon or Christian Science Scriptures, it is not clear that he intended for this to be authoritative for others. Other Bibles that have been reprinted, but not embraced by any particular group of believers, include the Jefferson Bible and the Women’s Bible edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Professor Paul C. Gutjahr observes that John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891) published his OAHSPE, which he said he received through channeling in 1882 and that Philemon Stewart, a Shaker, published a text through channeling entitled A Holy, Sacred and Divine Rolle and Book; from the Lord God of Heaven, to the Inhabitants of Earth in 1843 (Gutjahr 2001, 345). The Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for their New World Translation of the Bible, which they first published in 1960 (Gutjahr 2001, 345).
Apart from serving as books on which individuals might take oaths of office, it does not appear that any of these books have been extensively quoted by politicians, apart perhaps from those who might be addressing audiences of Muslims, Mormons, or Christian Scientists. It seems highly doubtful that many individuals outside of these denominations are familiar with these Scriptures or would be likely to recognize them. Given the current religious configuration of the United States, this seems unlikely to change in the near future. Especially in the case of those, like Mitt Romney, who view their own holy books as supplemental to the Bible, it would seem more useful to cite the text that most members of the public would recognize than one that would only appeal to adherents of a single faith.
A recent collection of the favorite Scriptures of one hundred American leaders notes that John Adams enjoyed quoting the introduction of the Shasta, a Hindu Scripture translated from Sanskrit that said,
God is one, creator of all, universal sphere, without beginning, without end. God governs all the creation by a general providence, resulting from his eternal designs. Search not the essence and the nature of the Eternal, who is one; your 22research will be vain and presumptuous. It is enough, that, day by day and night by night, you adore his power, his wisdom, and his goodness, in his works.” (Winder 2019, 2)
The book cites favorite Scriptures from other leaders from the writings of Muhammad and Joseph Smith, the Bhagavad Gita (a Hindu text that had some influence on American Transcendentalism and that has been emphasized by the Hare Krishnas), the Dharma (Gautama Buddha), and others.
See also Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; Congressional Oaths of Office; Jefferson Bible; Muhammad, Elijah; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady
For Reference and Further Reading
Barlow, Philip L. 1989. “Before Mormonism: Joseph Smith’s Use of the Bible, 1820–1829.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57 (Winter): 739–71.
Barlow, Philip L. 1990. “Joseph Smith’s Revision of the Bible: Fraudulent, Pathologic, or Prophetic?” Harvard Theological Review 83 (January): 45–64.
“Forum: American Scriptures.” 2011. Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 21 (Winter): 1–38.
Gallagher, Eugene V. 2013. 2013. “Sources, Sects, and Scripture: The Book of Satan in The Satanic Bible.” The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, ed. Per Faxneld and Jesper A. Peterson. New York: Oxford University Press,