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• Religion is likely to play a big role in voters’ choices in the 2024 presidential election – much as it did in previous years.
• Despite an overall shift away from participation in organized religion in the U.S. populace, religious rhetoric in the political arena has intensified.
• In the 2016 race, evangelical voters contributed, in part, to Republican nominee Donald Trump’s victory.
• Historical evidence can help identify trends that will likely influence the mix of religion and politics in the year ahead.

1. End-times rhetoric

• End-times rhetoric has long played a prominent role in American politics.
• Ever since Puritan John Winthrop first called America a “city on the hill” – meaning a shining example for the world to follow – the threat of losing that divinely appointed status has consistently been employed by presidential candidates.
• John F. Kennedy employed that exact image of the “city on the hill” in a 1961 speech on the cusp of his inauguration, claiming that – with “God’s help” – valor, integrity, dedication and wisdom would define his administration.

• By March 2023, at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference, he predicted that “if they [Democrats] win, we no longer have a country.” Biden has likewise drawn on the image of final battles.
• In a speech at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Sept. 1, 2022, he said that he and his supporters are in “a battle for the soul of this nation.”

2. Divine mandate

• Since the establishment of the republic, many U.S. political leaders have claimed a divine mandate.
• Scholars have long documented how those in power employ claims of divine authority to legitimize their role in a host of different countries.
• Recently, some U.S. politicians and public commentators have shifted to claiming divine authority for anti-democratic actions.
• Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 election, the switch from historical claims of divine authority for democracy to divine authority to challenge democracy is already obvious and apparent.

3. White supremacy and Christian nationalism

• Likewise, the unapologetically white supremacist “alt-right movement” that coalesced in 2010 around the philosophies of biological racism and the belief in the superiority of white peoples around the world have likewise mixed overt white supremacy with religious doctrines.
• This close connection between religious claims and white supremacy among overtly racist organizations has shown up in mainline political arenas as well.
• Evangelical leaders have consistently failed to condemn or disassociate themselves from leaders with overt white supremacy connections.
• In spring of 2023, 26 members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee refused to sign a letter denouncing white supremacy.

Tobin Miller Shearer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• I must have been about three years old and had discovered a blackbird nest unusually accessible in our garden hedge.
• I take some small consolation from the likelihood that this encounter helped forge a lifetime of fascination and involvement with birds.
• In the hope of opening that bridge to all, the American Ornithological Society recently announced it would replace all bird species named after people in North America.
• The history of bird naming in the British Isles offers some solutions.

It takes a village to name a bird

• We know of more than 7,000 folk names in English for about 150 species of British bird.
• For example, the grey heron has 180 recorded English folk names, and the wren 164.

• Bird names evoke strong emotional connections – potentially linking us not only with specific encounters with birds, but with the context and people who experienced them.
• It indicates that whoever coined this name recognised that the bird was singing the songs of other, more familiar species – and the namer knew these songs.

Passed down with care

• Many of the folk names given to other species were probably coined by or for children.
• Names like “scribble-lark” and “scribbling schoolmaster” for bunting species, whose eggs appear to have been written on, suggests (as do many more such names) a fascination with nests and eggs.

• We know, however, that despite the plethora of local names, they were handed down from generation to generation with great precision.
• These names were largely collected by ornithologists like Little, who wanted to know what birds were present throughout the British Isles.
• But they were agreed through consent with no intention, as evidenced through numerous bird books of the time, of these superseding or replacing the local names.
• It can only be hoped that renaming birds after their own qualities will help to open the wonder and love of birds to all people.

Andrew Gosler has received funding from the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council.

• But the reverse is often the case with popular fiction, which benefits from the immersive, visceral quality of the cinema.
• Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel Jaws, which turns 50 this year, was a smash.
• Yet when we think of Jaws, images from Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film adaptation are what come to mind – along with John Williams’ iconic theme music.
• Read more:
  From Jaws to Star Wars to Harry Potter: John Williams, 90 today, is our greatest living composer

‘The shark material is brilliant’

• A career journalist, Benchley is effective in describing actions, events and scenery: shark hunting, the ocean, Quint’s boat.
• The shark material is brilliant – the few times it cuts to the shark’s point of view (recalling Spielberg’s redeployment of the creature’s point of view from Creature from the Black Lagoon), the writing becomes electric, effortless.
• Benchley is at his best when describing the movements of the shark in the water.
• But the material about people is less confident – the writing is uneven and trite in places, with moments between characters sometimes strained in order to generate the necessary action.

Characters ‘loathsome in places’

• One of the great joys of the film is the developing friendship between Hooper and Brody, culminating in their delightful final exchange.
• After the shark is dead and they are kicking their way back to shore, Brody laughs: “I used to hate the water.” Hooper replies, “I can’t imagine why”.

• The characters in the novel are thus thoroughly unappealing – even loathsome in places.
• In the novel, Brody is “jealous and injured, inadequate and outraged”, a chauvinistic beer-guzzling bully, an obsessive – and often self-loathing – jerk.
• Ellen is also much less sympathetic in the novel (though admittedly in the film she’s a cardboard cutout of virtuous motherhood and wifedom).
• Martin, the middle son, age twelve, lounged in an easy chair, his shoeless feet propped up on the coffee table.
• Martin, the middle son, age twelve, lounged in an easy chair, his shoeless feet propped up on the coffee table.

Is ‘easy to swallow’ better?

• At the same time, Benchley – despite occasional flaws in the writing – does capture something of the dismal inconsistencies and banalities of being human.
• The complex self-loathing of the characters contrasts with the brutal and unthinking power – the genius for action and killing – of the shark.
• The film redacts the frailties and faults of the characters, turning an adult (albeit imperfect) novel into family-friendly fodder.
• It comes as no surprise that the film also excises much of the novel’s pointed class critique.
• […] Their bodies were lean, their muscles toned by boxing lessons at age nine, riding lessons at twelve, and tennis lessons ever since.

Benchley’s novel lingers longer

• Benchley, horrified by the bad rap his novel gave sharks, would go on to become an ecological activist focused on shark protection.
• Benchley’s Jaws may not immediately grab one as easily as Spielberg’s, and it’s certainly not as technically accomplished.

Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Human medicines European public assessment report (EPAR): Xtandi, enzalutamide, Date of authorisation: 21/06/2013, Date of refusal: 26/04/2013, Revision: 21, Status: Authorised