Nostalgia for dead tyrants and the longing for heroes are unhealthy, and they can result in the deification of a Saddam as easily as a Havel or Mandela.
I'll confess that, from an early age, I was a huge fan of President Reagan because my parents bought me an enormous stuffed monkey that they named President Reagan - yes, I get it now.
Reagan has been deified by the Republican Party, which is odd. The Reagan that modern Republicans revere is not the real Reagan.
I don't believe in the cult of personality, having my portrait hung all over the place like Ronald Reagan or Mao Tse-tung.
We Americans think quite highly of ourselves, and nothing makes us think more of ourselves than our romantic view of our presidents.
That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.
In politics, as in religion, there are devotees who show their reverence for a departed saint by converting his tomb into a sanctuary for crime.
1st Baron Macaulay
The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State.
What we need to affirm is that Jesus is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Whenever we marry Jesus to a political party, we are committing the sin of idolatry. We are making Jesus into the image of our political party.
One of the greatest dangers is secular religion - state worship.
In general I don't think the image of the state as a divinity is very helpful.
There certainly are those who worship the state much as divinities are worshipped. Not just the state but even leaders.
