Religious affiliations can affect the electability of the presidents of the United States and shape their stances on policy matters and their visions of society and also how they want to lead it. While no president has ever openly identified as an atheist, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and William Howard Taft were speculated to be atheists by their opponents during political campaigns; in addition, a survey during the presidency of Donald Trump showed that 63% of Americans did not believe he was religious, despite his professed Christian affiliation. Trump supporters have also circulated conspiracy theories that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Conversely, other presidents, such as Jimmy Carter, have used their faith as a defining aspect of their campaigns and tenure in office.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Baptist Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian body in the United States. The SBC is a cooperation of fully autonomous, independent churches with commonly held essential beliefs that pool some resources for missions.
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a Baptist Christian denomination established in 1907 as the Northern Baptist Convention, and named the American Baptist Convention from 1950 to 1972. It traces its history to the First Baptist Church in America (1638) and the Baptist congregational associations which organized the Triennial Convention in 1814.
The Baptist Union of Denmark is a Baptist Christian association of churches in Denmark. It is a member of the European Baptist Federation, the Baptist World Alliance, and the World Council of Churches. Headquarters of the Union are maintained in Copenhagen.
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a private ecumenical liberal Christian seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with Columbia University. Columbia University lists UTS among its affiliate schools, alongside Barnard College and Teachers College. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's constituent faculty of theology. In 1964, UTS also established an affiliation with the neighboring Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Despite its affiliation with Columbia University, UTS is an independent institution with its own administration and Board of Trustees. UTS confers the following degrees: Master of Divinity (MDiv), Master of Divinity & Social Work dual degree (MDSW), Master of Arts in religion (MAR), Master of Arts in Social Justice (MASJ), Master of Sacred Theology (STM), Doctor of Ministry (DMin), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
Richard Duane Warren is an American Baptist evangelical Christian pastor and author. He is the founder of Saddleback Church, an evangelical Baptist megachurch in Lake Forest, California. Since 2022, he is executive director of the Finishing the Task mission coalition.
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Missions and evangelism are core focuses of the seminary.
Talbot School of Theology is an evangelical Christian theological seminary located near Los Angeles. Talbot is one of the nine schools that comprise Biola University, located in La Mirada, California. Talbot is nondenominational and known for its conservative theological positions, particularly its historical adherence to biblical inerrancy.
United Theological Seminary is a United Methodist seminary in Trotwood, Ohio. Founded in 1871 by Milton Wright, the father of the Wright brothers, it was originally sponsored by the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. In 1946, members of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ merged with the Evangelical Church to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church, with which the seminary then became affiliated. When that denomination merged with The Methodist Church in 1968, United Theological Seminary became one of the thirteen seminaries affiliated with the new United Methodist Church (UMC).
Jeremiah Alvesta Wright Jr. is a pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a congregation he led for 36 years, during which its membership grew to over 8,000 parishioners. Following retirement, his beliefs and preaching were scrutinized when segments of his sermons about terrorist attacks on the United States and government dishonesty were publicized in connection with the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Louisville, Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University. The seminary has been an innovator in theological education, establishing one of the first Ph.D. programs in religion in the year 1892. After being closed during the Civil War, it moved in 1877 to a newly built campus in downtown Louisville and moved to its current location in 1926 in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. In 1953, Southern became one of the few seminaries to offer a full, accredited degree course in church music. For more than fifty years Southern has been one of the world's largest theological seminaries, with an FTE enrollment of over 3,300 students in 2015.
Dwight Nathaniel Hopkins is an American theologian and ordained Baptist minister who serves as a professor of theology at the University of Chicago.
The Jeremiah Wright controversy gained national attention in the United States, in March 2008 after ABC News investigated the sermons of Jeremiah Wright who was, at that time, the pastor of then U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama. Excerpted parts of the sermons were found to pertain to terrorist attacks on the United States and government dishonesty and were subject to intense media scrutiny. Wright is a retired senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and former pastor of Obama.
Since 1937, the United States presidential inauguration has included one or more prayers given by members of the clergy. Since 1933 an associated prayer service either public or private attended by the president-elect has often taken place on the morning of the day. At times a major public or broadcast prayer service takes place after the main ceremony most recently on the next day.
William Bullein Johnson was an American Baptist minister, one of the founders of the South Carolina State Baptist Convention in 1821, and later was the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1845 to 1851. Johnson is also the founder of Johnson Female Seminary, later renamed Johnson University, in 1848, the predecessor to Anderson University.
Robert James Jeffress Jr. is an American Southern Baptist pastor, author, radio host, and televangelist. He is the senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church, a megachurch in Dallas, Texas, and is a Fox News Contributor. His sermons are broadcast on the television and radio program Pathway to Victory, which is broadcast on more than 1,200 television stations in the United States and 28 other countries, and is heard on 900 stations and broadcast live in 195 countries.
Melissa Rogers is an American church-state lawyer and non-resident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She previously served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. On February 14, 2021, President Joe Biden designated Rogers as executive director of the reestablished Office under his administration.
Alice L. Thompson Waytes aka "Miss A.L.T. Waytes of Boston" was an African American educator and public speaker who campaigned for Black women's suffrage and the Progressive Party under Theodore Roosevelt.
Angelique Walker-Smith is an American Baptist minister and ecumenical leader. In September 2022, she was elected as president of the World Council of Churches, representing the North America region. She is ordained in the National Baptist Convention, USA. Since 2014, she has been on the national staff of Bread for the World. Before that, she was the executive director of the Church Federation of Greater Indianapolis for nineteen years.
