Oct 14, 2012
The Most Religious American President?
10-15-2012
Reprinted by request during the presidential election run-up.
Election Day is upcoming. Which of our presidents was the most religious — anyway, the most observant — is a topic that has relevance, perhaps more so when “social issues” inhabit headlines. Lest we judge, lest we be judged, we should acknowledge that it is an open question with no definitive answer, yet a fit topic for discussion. It is interesting to view the historical evidence and consider verifiable records.
I addressed the topic last President’s Day, and it proved to be the most popular –- or at least the recipient of the most “hits” and reactions -– in the several years I have been blogging and writing devotional essays. Are people hungry for intellectual “parlor games”… or wanting to connect the dots between political leaders and Christian faith?
In my case I hold Theodore Roosevelt in particular regard. A year ago my biography of him, BULLY! (Regnery History, 440 pages, illustrated entirely by vintage political cartoons), was published, and I devoted a chapter to TR’s faith. (Indeed, I am working on a full book on the theme.) One thing I have come to appreciate about TR is something that largely has been neglected by history books. That is, the aspect of his fervent Christian faith. In some ways, he might be seen as the most Christian and the most religious of all presidents; and by “religious” I mean most observant.
This is (admittedly) subjective; it is difficult to compute and compile lists of factors. TR’s name at the top of the list of religiously observant presidents might surprise some people, yet that surprise would itself bear witness to the nature of his faith: privately held, but permeating countless speeches, writings, and acts. (A step out of character for this man who otherwise exhibited most of multi-faceted personality to the world!) His favorite verse was Micah 6:8 -– “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
He was of the Dutch Reformed Church. He participated in missions work with his father, a noted philanthropist. He taught weekly Sunday School classes during his four years at Harvard. He wrote for Christian publications.
He called his bare-the-soul speech announcing his principles when running in 1912, “A Confession of Faith.” Later he closed perhaps the most important speech of his life, the clarion-call acceptance of the Progressive Party nomination that year, with the words, “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!” That convention featured evangelical hymns and closed with “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
He titled one his books Foes of Our Own Household (after Matthew 10:36) and another, Fear God and Take Your Own Part. He once wrote an article for The Ladies’ Home Journal, “Nine Reasons Why Men Should Go To Church.” After TR left the White House, he was offered university presidencies and many other prominent jobs. He chose instead to become Contributing Editor of The Outlook, a relatively small Christian weekly magazine.
He was invited to deliver the Earl Lectures at Pacific Theological Seminary in 1911, but declined due to a heavy schedule. Knowing he would be near Berkeley on a speaking tour, however, he offered to deliver the lectures if he might be permitted to speak extemporaneously, not having time to prepare written texts of the five lectures, as was the school’s customary requirement. It was agreed, and TR spoke for 90 minutes each evening -– from the heart and without notes -– on the Christian’s role in modern society.
… and so on. TR was not perfect, but he knew the One who is. Fond of saying that he would “speak softly and carry a big stick,” it truly can be said, also, that Theodore Roosevelt hid the Word in his heart, and acted boldly. He was a great American because he was thoroughgoing good man; and he was a good man because he was a humble believer.
Remember Theodore Roosevelt on his birthday, Oct 27, days before the election. Remember him every day -– we are not seeing his kind any more.
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A clip from a memorable movie of the 1970s, starring Sean Connery and Candice Bergen, depicting Theodore Roosevelt handling a terrorist situation in north Africa during his presidency. Brian Keith as TR.
Click: The Wind and the Lion
In Buffalo we have a museum on the site of TR’s inauguration after the assassination of President McKinley. One exhibit includes a Buffalo newspaper from the days when McKinley was being treated. It has TR holding the anarchist movement responsible and specifically blaming Leo Tolstoy. It is bracing to see someone whom many now revere as Mahatma Gandhi’s main Christian influence being pounded in this manner, but it was not a first for TR, as he had banned Tolstoy’s novel The Kreutzer Sonata in 1889 while he was NY Attorney General, calling Tolstoy “a sexual moral pervert”. (The ban in NY and PA was overturned by state courts.) In any event all this shows his passion on moral manners.
Another Christian trait – and reflected so well in the movie clip – was his deep love and respect for God’s creation. Has any president done more to conserve this beautiful land? This is a trait many of us would do well to emulate…
Mr Regan — After McKinley’s assassination, many people attributed anarchist literature as the wellspring of the crime: most notably the assassin himself, Leon Czolgoz. Roosevelt took the gunman at his word, and indeed there was a worldwide wave of anarchist attacks on political leaders, a few months earlier on the King of Italy. Some of Tolstoy’s political ideas, for instance endorsing the Democrat Party’s 1908 platform which was pacifistic but also called for the denial of Asian immigration to the US and other racist measures, Roosevelt condemned. Maxim Gorki, more than Tolstoy, excited Roosevlt’s ire — Mrs Roosevelt refused to be “at home” when Gorki visted the summer White House at Oyster Bay. TR indeed called the Kreutzer Sonata of Tolstoy immoral… but you are mistaken on several points. TR was never New York Attorney General. In 1889 he was US Civil Service Commissioner. Roosevelt had problems (as a moralist and literary critic) with Tolstoy’s morality as expressed in his books — but it was more the “Christian Pacifism” so identified with Tolstoy, which TR thought morally irresponsible in its logical extenstions; and Tolstoy’s philosophical advocacy of celibacy. Roosevelt thought it was prescription for race suicide, a social sin in his book. Although TR criticized Tolstoy, it was always mixed with admiration — for the writer’s skills as well as certain of his propositions. The Kreutzer Sonata received praise also; and the case of Anna Karenina is instructive: He read it, improbably, while chasing, arresting, and bringing to justice three thieves in the wintery wilds of the Dakota territory, 1886. He did not condremn the character of Anna as loose or immoral, but rather as a victim. He thought the subplot about Levin and Kitty to be more interesting. And so forth. But no censorious words about Tolstoy’s “morals” — except, in a letter to his sister, that he found it interesting that Tolstoy could maintain aloofness from the choices and morals of his characters. Finally, in certain ways — particularly in his own mind — Tolstoy would have been surprised to find Gandhi as a follower. He saw himself as the most extreme manifestation of Christianity. So, yes, Roosevelt and Tolstoy both had what you call “passion on moral matters,” and I suspect they understood each other perfectly.
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