History Buff's Guide to the Presidents (7 page)

Most presidents firmly believed in a supreme being, and many invoked the blessings of heaven in public. But there have been some who actively blurred the separation between God and government. Initially they were the exception. But a transformation occurred after World War II, when the country faced an archenemy in the officially atheistic Soviet Union. To demonize the opposition—a standard tactic in wartime—the White House began to resemble a house of faith, a bastion of believers against a godless foe. When the strategy proved popular among voters, faith-based government slowly became a possibility. The wrath of Vietnam and W
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further enticed the electorate to seek candidates with religious conviction, and openly spiritual presidents have been in place ever since.

Below are the chief executives who were the most explicitly devout in their public service, based on the rhetoric of their speeches, actions in their daily lives, and the inclusion of religion in their policies. Not surprisingly, most of them are recent, and they have consciously challenged the moral boundaries established by the Founding Fathers.
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1
. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (PRESBYTERIAN)

He began his inaugural speech with “a little private prayer” and then proceeded into a sermon of rapture, fired by references of gods and wars, light and darkness, and warnings that “forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed.” After swearing the oath on two Bibles, Eisenhower announced: “Science seems ready to confer upon us, as its final gift, the power to erase human life from this planet. At such a time in history, we who are free must proclaim anew our faith.”

It was a bit dark for such an otherwise cheery fellow. The message was also atypical of him. Until he reached the White House, Eisenhower had not been particularly religious in his life. After election, he transformed into the valiant crusader, dedicated to stand firm against the specter of faithless communism.

During his childhood, Ike’s mother was a member of the Watchtower Society, later known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. For nearly twenty years, the Eisenhower home in Abilene, Kansas, served as a meetinghouse. Threaded into many of the gatherings were portents of Armageddon, due sometime around 1915. When the end of time came and went, all the Eisenhower boys drifted away from their mother’s sect, rarely to speak of it again.

However, by Inauguration Day 1953, the possibility of global annihilation seemed all too real. The metaphorical darkness of communism had spread across half of Europe and all of China. Southeast Asia seemed poised to fall, and the Soviet Union possessed the bomb. Americans had recently learned that their own scientists had engineered an entirely new device: a “hydrogen bomb” hundreds of times more powerful than what had leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In his war against “godless communism,” Eisenhower opted for containment overseas but an offensive at home. Twelve days after his address on the apocalypse, he was baptized, confirmed, and made a communicant in the Presbyterian Church. On Flag Day 1954, he signed a bill adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. He consecrated the moment with the statement, “We are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.” In 1956, he helped make “In God We Trust” the official motto of the United States, and in 1957, the phrase was added to federal paper currency. Support for his actions were considerable, especially in the Deep South and the Northeast, where more than two-thirds of public schools engaged in daily Bible readings.
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The man who considered himself “the most intensely religious man I know” also set the precedent of starting cabinet meetings with a prayer, and he created the interfaith White House prayer breakfast. Eisenhower also started a tradition that ran through the administrations of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes, when he called on evangelist Billy Graham to be his unofficial spiritual adviser.
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In retirement, Dwight Eisenhower became a member of the Gettysburg Presbyterian Church, the same church Abraham Lincoln visited after giving a short address at a nearby cemetery on November 19, 1863.

2
. GEORGE W. BUSH (METHODIST)

No doubt the question was meant to be a plumb-line measure of intellect. Most of the Republican candidates could hardly name one, let alone pretend to have a preference. But when debate moderator Tom Brokaw asked them in a 2000 primary debate which political philosopher influenced them most, the oft-stumbling governor of Texas quickly offered an answer. It was a statement not of brains but of conviction, the one ingredient he held in abundance.

“Jesus Christ, because he changed my heart.” Since age thirty-nine, Bush professed to be born again, and his advertised creed, viewed by the pundits as a quirk, gave him a decisive push from the religious Right that would carry him into the White House.

After winning the GOP nomination in August, his running mate was to be Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. Bush dumped the pro-choice Catholic for pro-life Methodist Dick Cheney. On Election Day, he won 77 percent of the evangelical Protestant vote, nearly a fourth of the electorate. More than 85 percent of those who described themselves as religious conservatives chose him. When he became president, Bush was not exaggerating when he said, “I am here because of the power of prayer.”
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David Frum, a Bush speechwriter, described the revived White House as a “culture of modern Evangelicalism.” The chief executive led Bible studies. Every cabinet meeting began with a prayer. Several staff and cabinet members wore their faith on their sleeves, particularly Secretary of Education William Bennet and speechwriter Michael Gerson (who would later coin the phrase “axis of evil”). Nine days into his term, Bush established the White House Office of FaithBased and Community Initiatives, offering grants to private organizations that provided social services.
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In hindsight, it can be said that the attacks of September 11, 2001, greatly intensified a preexisting condition, and Bush consecrated the new War on Terror with ecclesiastical language. Standing before a joint session of Congress on September 20, he stated, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists…One cannot serve two masters.”

Throughout his administration, he argued against abortion and gay marriage on moral grounds. His first veto was against the funding of stem cell research. Funds from his faith-based program had only gone to Christian organizations. Continuing to wage war in the Middle East, he was often called into question for his heavily religious moralizing, yet Bush never hid his worldview from the American public. “My style, my focus, and many of the issues that I talk about,” Bush firmly insisted, “are reinforced by my religion.”
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Among George W. Bush’s fellow Methodists are Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

3
. JAMES EARL CARTER (BAPTIST)

The religious Right truly became a part of American politics with the emergence of a conservative, devout Democrat. In 1976, a Gallup poll calculated that nearly half of American Protestants considered themselves “born again.” Included among them was soon-to-be president Jimmy Carter.
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His brand of unconcealed faith struck a chord with the long-dormant and diffuse fundamentalist lobby. It also appealed to a large portion of the general electorate seeking a clean break from the demagoguery of LBJ and Tricky Dick. It was a Third Great Awakening of sorts, and religion stepped into the political waters with both feet. In his home church in Plains, Georgia, the candidate insisted, “We have a responsibility to shape government so it does exemplify the teachings of God.” Said one individual at the Democratic Party Convention, “Surely the Lord sent Jimmy Carter.” While President Gerald Ford later wrote, “Carter talked about his religious convictions in a way that I found discomfiting,” many voters believed Carter when he said, “I’ll be a better president because of my deep religious convictions.”
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The
New York Times
dubbed Carter’s inaugural address a “sermon,” and he continued to teach Sunday school while president. Respectful of the Old Testament, he was hawkish in his support of Israel, a nation-state he considered to be “a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.” When discussing his pursuit of peace in the Middle East, Carter frequently used the phrase “sacred work.”
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But as a moralist, Carter was largely unsuccessful. He brought the revival, and then he asked the congregation to think secularly on prayer in public schools, family planning, and abortion. His moral will appeared all the more suspect when tested against the “godless” Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran.
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Yet his was largely a faith of introspection, a perpetual effort to cleanse the self rather than convert others. Emblematic was his thoroughly religious “Crisis of confidence” address of July 1979. He spoke of a citizenry that had lost its way, and he lamented that self-worth was “no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.” His message was initially greeted with widespread approval, but in time the testament became known as the infamous “Malaise Speech,” roundly rejected by a populace that felt they had suffered enough to consider themselves worthy of salvation. In 1980, many of them chose to look for a less complicated faith, one that provided an unequivocal feeling of righteousness.
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Secret Service code name for President Carter: “The Deacon”

4
. WILLIAM McKINLEY (METHODIST)

At a camp revival meeting in Poland, Ohio, a ten-year-old boy stood up among the congregation and declared his everlasting devotion to his God. By sixteen, he had attained the rank of communicant, much to the delight of his devout parents. In adulthood he became a Sunday-school director and president of a YMCA. He was so driven by his faith that he openly declared Christianity as “the mightiest factor in the world’s civilization.” A year later, he became the twenty-fifth president of the United States.
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