Building a Nation: The US Constitution and the President's Oath of Office

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Theology - Practical Theology, grade: 1, University of Graz, language: English, abstract: There are many differences in their attitude towards religion in public life between european and US¿citizens and even though there is an agreement on the separation of church and state on both coasts of the Atlantic, the difference in how much of their own belief politicians are allowed to express when executing a public office seems to be as huge in scale like the water mass of the ocean between the two continents. No politician in the US could successfully run for a public office without at least some reference to God during his campaign and no european politician could achieve the same doing so. It¿s not only the importance of civil religion in everyday¿s life that draws a line of separation between Europe and the USA, there is also a great divide in how much of their own historical genesis is reflected among Europeans and Americans. For Americans, being true to the spirit and the intention of their ¿founding fathers¿ seems to be much more important than a European would agree to evaluate his or her being true to some spirit of the politicians that signed the ¿Contracts of Rome¿ in 1957 that created the beginning of today¿s European Community they are living in. The tremendous amount of discussion, negative and positive propaganda, political analysis and reservation among the people related to create a constitution (with or without any reference to God) for Europe too is only a small hint for how different and sensitive the public opinion is about being part of any legacy of foundation that was bequeathed by our ancestors in order to keep a dream alive they were fighting for long time ago. It is the constitution any new president of the United States has to swear an oath on the bible for and it might be an interesting task especially for an european citizen like me to take a closer look on this important document of US history, which is often referred to in many movies or television series (for instance ¿The West Wing¿). After some historical background information about the United States of America I¿ll present an overview of the Constitution itself and how it has been expanded by a total of 26 amendments so far. After this historical excursion, I¿ll have a short look on how the new president of the United States Barack Obama thinks about the constitution and how important it has always been for him since his childhood. Finally, there will also be a brief analysis of his inaugural address given on January 20th.