What Does It Mean When Politicians Sound Like Preachers?
(Note: This essay was published by TheFulcrum.us on 10/18/26.)
Many politicians are speaking to our “moral moment.” Does this signal some kind of a Great Turning?
ANDY BESHEAR, KENTUCKY’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR, has a new book out called Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country. The publisher describes it as an effort to “reclaim faith as a force for good” and counter people who use religion to harm and discriminate. Given Beshear’s high profile in Democratic politics and his having been named a presidential frontrunner, it is all but certain to be a New York Times bestseller, likely selling a million or more copies.
Beshear isn’t the only politician writing and speaking in a faith‑inflected register today. Several Democrats—and one Republican—are doing the same:
· Corey Booker, NJ Senator (Stand: An Urgent Call to Rekindle Our Shared American Ideals)
· Raphael Warnock, Georgia Senator, ordained minister (The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America)
· Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania (Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service – A Memoir of Leadership and the Fight to Restore Faith in American Government)
· Chris Murphy, CT Senator (Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America)
· Spencer Cox, Governor of Utah (R) (Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt)
· James Talarico, Democrat running for Senate in Texas, seminarian
· Adam Hamilton, running for Senate in Kansas, ordained minister and author of more than a dozen books on faith
All these men seem to recognize that traditional policy talk feels too small for the scale of the country’s anxieties. Perhaps they, as I do, sense a deep yearning for authentic leaders who frame politics as moral work—service, compassion, dignity, responsibility.
Who knows what the deeper motivations are of these men, but this much is certain, at least for the Democrats: They are betting that faith‑inflected political language and moral storytelling is a strategic asset heading into the midterms and the 2028 presidential election.
The words “faith,” “spiritual crisis,” “spirituality,” even “cults” saturate these books. Such language lets a politician speak to the country’s emotional and civic anxieties without sounding partisan or technocratic.
In addition, for Democrats, by invoking service, compassion, dignity, and shared responsibility, they get to reclaim moral vocabulary from the religious right. And potentially, such language broadens their coalition across Black and Latino communities, both of which are more religious than average Americans and crucial to winning elections.
At a moment when politicians are widely reviled, it also allows them to define themselves as healers—even prophets.
Is This a Sign of a “Turning”?
Readers of my essays know I’ve compared our time to the Gilded Age, another period of dizzying inequality, institutional fragility, and social fragmentation. From my study of that time and the Progressive Era that followed it, I’ve learned that this period was drenched in moral and religious rhetoric.
Many politicians of that era—Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, to name three—didn’t just use faith language; they wrapped themselves in it, pounding it home in thunderous speeches, and positioning themselves as moral clarions.
In language that would go nowhere in today’s more secular America, Roosevelt rallied supporters with, “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.” Wilson spoke of America’s “spiritual purpose” and insisted the nation was “chosen to show the world a new path of justice and peace.”
Presbyterian Bryan, the most overtly prophetic of them all, got in the face of rapacious capitalists, saying, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” This language turned laborers and farmers into a suffering Christ and financial elites into their tormentors.
The surge of moral rhetoric in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era wasn’t a stylistic quirk; it was part of a broader effort to stabilize a society coming apart at the seams. Many of these leaders were advancing what some historians describe as a Great Turning—a period when a society undergoes sweeping, even radical shifts in its moral, political, and economic structure.
When you look closely, the same forces that fueled the moral rhetoric of that earlier era are also unsettling our time:
· The breakneck rate of technological change
· Staggering wealth inequality
· Untrustworthy institutions
· Historically high levels of stress and loneliness
In such moments, effective politicians employ the language of conscience, purpose, sacrifice, and redemption because citizens are searching for grounding and moral reassurance, not just governance and policy.
If Politicians Sound Like Preachers...
If politicians sound like preachers, it may be because citizens are listening like eager congregants—hungry for moral clarity and steadiness in a time that feels spiritually unmoored.
The Gilded Age shows us that moral rhetoric resonates when people feel overwhelmed and unsure of the future. As for our time, “concerns about the Future of the Nation” were reported by 76% of respondents in the most recent Stress in America study.
Whether this moment signals some kind of a Great Turning or merely a shrewd political strategy will become clear in time.
But one thing is true now: If a turning is underway, its direction will depend less on the politicians invoking moral language than on whether we the people choose to remain passive or step forward as moral agents in our own right.
That work begins not in Washington but in neighborhoods, congregations, and civic groups, wherever ordinary Americans decide to show up, build trust, repair what is frayed, and take responsibility for one small piece of our common life.
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