but the moral authority -- the unspoken influence of leadership -- is not to be trifled with.
If you apply the same argument to marital fidelity, you not only get a despicable demeaning of the office, you get a whole lot of bad politics and policy with it -- the kind that can ruin a generation the world over, and perhaps have even more momentous consequences. Here I'm speaking of the preventability of 911 and the loosing of terror on the world that followed it, and Bill Clinton's jerking around in the highest office in the land.
No, in a strictly secular sense, it doesn't matter what the president believes about such things. But in a moral sense -- and leadership is a moral proposition -- it just might be the most important factor.
A president without a conscience is a scourge to the world.
Any person who can't see the incredible evil of the American holocaust (50 million innocent humans killed) has even less moral character than a person who can't see the incredible evil of the Nazi holocaust (6 million innocent Jews killed). If comparison of the number of human beings murdered with government approval in both nations is used as the measure of respective guilt, the US is 8 times more guilty than Nazi Germany, and those in authority who legalize the killing in America will suffer divine retribution 8 times worse than the Nazis. (Luke 17:2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend (harm) one of these little ones.)
But in a moral sense -- and leadership is a moral proposition -- it just might be the most important factor.
A president without a conscience is a scourge to the world.
Exactly my point, but better said.
"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate, look to his character. The scriptures teach that rulers should be men who rule in the fear of God,..........When a citizen gives his vote to a man of known immorality, he abuses his civic responsibility, he sacrifices not only his interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country."
Noah Webster, 1823