It bears notice that less than 1% of Congress openly identify as being atheist, agnostic, or unaffiliated with any religion. Pretentions of religiosity is inherent in politics, like bone under the meat.
Re MJ, it could simply be politics (rather than ego, an order of magnitude more dangerous than the former, in my opinion). Hard to get elected when ~70% of the country believe in this or that whatsits sky-thingy, and then, once in office, pretenders must maintain their bogus-cred for influence and the next election.
