The president is the high priest of what sociologist Robert Bellah calls the 'American civil religion.' The president must invoke the name of God (though not Jesus), glorify America's heroes and history, quote its sacred texts (the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution), and perform the transubstantiation of pluribus unum.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (ed. Penguin UK, 2012) - ISBN: 9781846145711