Barack Obama and the Voice of God

In the 1950s and '60s, God was a man named Alexander Scourby. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., of Greek immigrant parents and attended college in West Virginia, but he spoke in a "deep and resonant voice" (as Wikipedia puts it) and — here is the key point — with more than a touch of a British accent. Long after Britain had exhausted its resources in World War II and lost its empire, a British accent conveyed authority, dignity, power.

In Hollywood, they sometimes refer to an omniscient but unseen narrator as a VOG, short for voice of God. Scourby was...