The Gospel According to Q

According to Lord Acton, religious leaders should be held to a higher moral standard than ordinary people. Future historians should bear that advice in mind when assessing America’s religious right and its current leaders, writes Nina L Khrushcheva

Trump supporters at a campaign rally with President Donald Trump in August 2018. File picture: AP/Matt Rourke

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Lord Acton wrote in a letter to an Anglican bishop in 1887. Acton was considering how religious historians should handle past crimes committed by the church’s leaders. 

In his view, religious (and political) leaders should be held to a higher moral standard than ordinary people. When historical accounts fail to do that, they “serve the worst better than the purest”.