Every day the correspondence unit at the White House, located in the adjacent massive gray wedding-cake-style Victorian structure known now as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, receives thousands of letters, e-mails, texts, tweets, and other forms of communication from constituents. The staff, many of whom are volunteers, have various ways of handling their responses. During our time there, they would randomly select letters for the President to review personally. These were a sampling of letters from Americans they thought would be meaningful for him to see. Some of these writers received handwritten responses directly from the President. The same was true for the First Lady. The correspondence office staff also sought specific detailed information from all of us on the senior staff in order to be able to answer these letters correctly.
One day a member of the correspondence office asked me if I knew the President’s favorite hymns or if he even had any. Apparently someone had written to the White House to find out. I think I was asked this question because they assumed I would ask the First Lady and she would know the answer. I decided, however, to ask the President directly. I was pleasantly surprised to hear him tell me that two of his favorites were also favorites of my dad, who also very much enjoyed hymn singing.
The first was “In the Garden” and the second was “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” When he told me his choices, I was impressed. Then, to my surprise and enjoyment, he quietly sang them to me. He had all the words committed to memory, and I thought he probably referred to them and actually depended on them regularly, albeit privately. He didn’t refer to a hymnal when answering my question; he referred to his memory and his heart. He knew right away how he would answer my question, did not hesitate, and quietly responded—lyrically. I did not think of Reagan as musical or as having a particularly good singing voice, and he did not prove me wrong when he sang me these hymns. He added that there were many other hymns he liked as well. Of course I wanted to continue our conversation about hymns much longer; however, our vocal experience was sandwiched in between meetings and was cut short. Hymn singing was a part of the worship service in his boyhood church and on the campus of Eureka College—which was church affiliated, so Reagan would have heard these hymns and sung them regularly for many years. The fact that he sung the hymns to me was not only delightful and moving—imagine being sung to by the President of the United States!—but was proof that his answer was not superficial. He knew and loved these hymns and put them to use.
After this brief, impromptu concert up in the family quarters, I went back to my office and researched the words of both hymns, and I thought about what they might have meant to Reagan and why he selected those to share with me. The first hymn, “In the Garden,” seemed especially to fit with my view of Reagan and his relationship with God—especially because the chorus contains these words: “And He walks with me, and He talks with me / And He tells me I am His own; / And the joy we share as we tarry there, / None other has ever known.” Here, I thought, was the center of Reagan’s belief system; a walk with God, a talk with God. Personal. Private. Learned from his mother. Depended upon in boyhood. Tested in adversity. Reagan had a walk with God to the degree I had never seen in anyone else—and I have met and known many God-fearing and prayerful people in my life. It was quiet and confident. That was what he kept inside. That was what he kept as unknowable and unshared with the outside world. This was the essence of the man—not his intellect, although surely he had a fine one, but his spiritual perspective, his walk with his God. This was the inner force that animated him, directed him, spoke to him, comforted him, and allowed him to be that contained and complete individual who in some ways did not need anyone else—despite his closeness to and dependence on his wife.
Perhaps, considering Reagan’s hymnbook favorites, he used these as prayers in a way that my daughter Lauren once referred to in reply to a friend who had asked her what it meant to pray: “Prayer is easy,” she told her friend. “It’s just like singing.”
There were a couple of occasions where Reagan did reveal publicly what he prayed for. We do know that while he was recovering from his bullet wound at the George Washington University Hospital, he was praying for his would-be assassin—probably among many other things that he did not specifically mention or record. In his youth he had seen his mother heal people through prayer, so this might have been a time he used her example in his own life. Reagan’s diaries and his autobiography are filled with numerous references to praying, and some even mention the names of people he prayed for including, interestingly, his own father-in-law, the noted and formidable Chicago neurosurgeon, Dr. Loyal Davis—whose Phoenix funeral I managed for the Reagans in 1982.
People across a broad spectrum of the public say they pray—most notably in crisis—but many also talk about regular daily prayer. In fact, according to Barna Research, 84 percent of Americans pray at least once per week, and 64 percent say they pray more than once a day. If these statistics are a correct reflection of the general voting population, I would imagine that those who pray would expect their leaders to pray as well. As Reagan noted in 1984 at the Dallas Prayer Breakfast:
“The Mayflower Compact began with the words: ‘In the name of God, amen.’ The Declaration of Independence appeals to ‘Nature’s God’ and ‘the Creator’ and ‘the Supreme Judge of the world.’ Congress was given a chaplain, and the oaths of office are oaths before God.”
Faith was a strong strain in Reagan’s character, and it was interwoven with every other element in it. Faith for Reagan was no Sunday occurrence. His elements of faith were fundamental to who he was as a human being, leader, and communicator. They were the simple reality of the man and the largest aspect of his individuality. His leadership and communication abilities were the direct result of this integrated and integral core.
Reagan was not the only American leader for whom faith has been a dominant element of character, as he himself pointed out again at the same Dallas Prayer Breakfast when he referred to the religious ideals of the Founding Fathers:
“James Madison in the Federalist Papers admitted that in the creation of our Republic he ‘perceived the hand of the Almighty.’ John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, warned we must never forget the ‘God from whom our blessing flowed.’ George Washington referred to religion’s ‘profound and unsurpassed place in the heart of our nation.’ And Washington voiced reservations about the idea that there could be a wise policy without a firm and moral and religious foundation. He said, ‘Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.’”
In a study of the Founding Fathers and their faith published by the Lehrman Institute, political scientist John G. West Jr. is quoted as saying that George Washington’s “political theology was far from ambiguous. It incorporated three great propositions… First, Washington believed that religion served as the necessary defender of morality in civic life. Second, he maintained that the moral law defended by religion was the same moral law that can be known by reason. Third, he saw religious liberty as a natural right of all human beings.”
Historian Samuel Eliot Morison also wrote of the first American President, “He believed in God… He was certain of a Providence in the affairs of men. By the same token, he was completely tolerant of other people’s beliefs, more so than the American democracy of today; for in a letter to the Swedenborgian church of Baltimore he wrote: ‘In this enlightened age and in the land of equal liberty it is our belief that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the law, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest offices that are known in the United States.’ But Washington never became an active member of any church.”
Similarly, John Adams was a believer. Historian Edwin S. Gaustad wrote: “From early entries in his diary to letters written late in life, Adams composed variations on a single theme: God is so great, I am so small. Adams never doubted who was in charge of the universe, never believed himself as master of his, or anyone’s destiny.”
In 1846 Abraham Lincoln wrote, “That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or any denomination of Christians in particular… I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion.”
Jimmy Carter was a Baptist who taught Sunday School in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, and in Washington after he was elected President. Carter called himself a born-again Christian. Carter said that as President he prayed every day. After his time in office he published a study Bible as well as Sunday School lessons, and he said that he read a passage of Scripture every night aloud, taking turns with his wife, Rosalynn.
George W. Bush, also a professed born-again Christian and Methodist, was also very public and forthcoming with his profession of faith. When Bush was running for president, he was asked his favorite political philosopher. He famously answered, “Jesus Christ—because he changed my heart.”
In March 1981, Reagan wrote in his Proclamation for a National Day of Prayer,
“Prayer is today as powerful a force in our nation as it has ever been. We as a nation should never forget this source of strength. And while recognizing that the freedom to choose a godly path is the essence of liberty, as a Nation we cannot but hope that more of our citizens would, through prayer, come into a closer relationship with their Maker.”
What is unusual here is not that there was such a proclamation, because speechwriters have been crafting these messages for decades. It was what this proclamation stood for: recognizing the power of prayer and the need of more Americans to have a relationship with God through prayer. I can only conjecture, but having known him I can imagine that Ronald Reagan prayed for this eventuality.
Reagan said publicly that he believed in intercessory prayer. He said that at times he also had the actual sensation of being prayed for by others. He talked of how grateful he was that people were praying for him, and it helped him do his job better. In October 1983 he said,
“Hardly a day goes by that I’m not told—sometimes in letters and sometimes by people that I meet and perfect strangers—and they tell me that they’re praying for me. Well, thanks to [my mother] Nelle Reagan, I believe in intercessory prayer, I know that those prayers are giving me strength that I would not otherwise possess.”
He told the story that while Governor of California, he was visited one afternoon by two different groups of people lobbying him for something on behalf of their constituents. Before each one left the state capitol building they suddenly ran back into his office and told Reagan they were praying for him. He was deeply affected by that. Shortly after this he found, while visiting his doctor, that a diagnosed stomach ailment from which he had been suffering, and receiving regular medical treatment for, had completely disappeared. This was confirmed by his physician. Reagan attributed this healing to the power of prayer and of those seeking it for him while he was in public office.
To talk openly about prayer should not be difficult in a free and open society; however, in relationship to politics, it is a tricky thing to do. Prayer is subjective, taught in various ways, and practiced in even more. It can be used to justify going to war and inflicting harm as well as being used to heal, find solace, seek guidance, and save lives. When it comes to leaders, most of them will profess a proclivity to pray, and they will admit to doing so but will wisely leave the particulars out of most discussions. Private prayer is what we are talking about here. Public prayer practiced in churches, in synagogues, or in mosques, or on hillsides or street corners is something else. Most American Presidents have admitted the need for prayer and have written and talked publicly about it, some more openly than others. Reagan said that he had learned from his mother “the value of prayer, how to have dreams and believe I could make them come true.”
Presidents since Eisenhower have always attended the traditional National Prayer Breakfast usually held in February in Washington each year—an event held in the largest ballroom in the nation’s capital. This event has grown significantly since its establishment in 1953 as the Presidential Prayer Breakfast to become an international event with a long waiting list of those who seek to be admitted as guests. I have heard some surprising confessionals and genuinely humble and personal introspections voiced at these breakfasts by celebrities and national officeholders—which makes the interlude at that breakfast seem so refreshing.
At Reagan’s first Prayer Breakfast appearance, he told the now-popularized parable that he liked so much that I heard him repeat it several times. The story goes that as a man was walking on the beach, he turned to look back and saw two sets of footprints in the sand where he had been walking—except that in intervals, there was only one set of footprints. Seeing these intervals as times of trouble in his life, he asked God to explain why He was not walking alongside of him—as God had promised always to do. It was then that God explained, “During those times of trouble, my son, there was only one set of footprints in the sand because I was carrying you.”
I think Reagan actually saw himself as the man on the beach. It was a metaphor for his life and how he had always lived it. He needed God at his side and felt Him there. He could describe this walk in parables like this one but rarely talked about it to others in personal terms.
At another Prayer Breakfast he said:
“I’m so thankful that there will always be one day in the year when people all over our land can sit down as neighbors and friends and remind ourselves of what our real task is. This task was spelled out in the Old and the New Testament. Jesus was asked, ‘Master, which is the great commandment in the law?’ And He replied, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’”
And he himself confessed at another one of these annual events,
“I’ve always believed that we were, each of us, put here for a reason, that there is a plan, somehow a divine plan for all of us. I know that whatever days are left to me belong to Him.”
Lincoln was also especially candid in his writing and talking about his need for prayer and how often he resorted to it. Washington is said to have prayed before every battle. Eisenhower talked about praying all through World War II and his presidency. Because praying most always refers to silent communion or meditation, it is a right of the individual that can never be taken away—and Reagan referred to it in this way. Reagan also liked to refer to Lincoln and recount that during his struggles to end slavery and reunite the country he would often drop to his knees in prayer because he had “nowhere else to go.” Reagan also said on the National Day of Prayer in 1982,
“The most sublime picture in American history is of George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. That image personifies a people who know that it’s not enough to depend on our own courage and goodness; we must also seek help from God, our Father and Preserver.”
It says a lot about Reagan that he called this painting the “most sublime” picture—a picture painted in 1975 by artist Arnold Friberg, who also painted the illustrations used in the epic motion picture film The Ten Commandments. Others may disagree on its relative importance as a painting, but they cannot disagree that this is how Reagan saw the imagery.
Reagan told of praying before beginning most meetings and before every airplane flight—which was not unlike how he prayed before every football game he played in college. Prior to one Cabinet meeting, an official suggested to the President that the group institute a new practice of beginning each meeting with everyone praying. Turning to Reagan for approval, he was surprised to hear the President respond sparsely and poignantly, “Oh, I already have,” and then he continued on with the business at hand.
I feel this story is significant in illustrating Reagan’s religious practice and inner spirit. To him prayer was quiet and personal, not something for public display. While there were times in his life that he did pray in a group, he did not typically call on others to join him. He must have known intuitively that praying in public, especially when you are an elected politician, can lead to stereotypes not always helpful to the political process. During my time in the White House a group of senior staff members organized a weekly prayer breakfast in the staff dining room, called the Mess, which I occasionally attended and enjoyed, and from which I benefited. I do not ever recall seeing the President there, although he was invited and may have attended once or twice. This was just not his route to praying as President.
There was one time, however, where a special type of prayer got noisy. The Reagans hosted a regular Public Broadcasting System arts and entertainment show known as In Performance at the White House. It featured leading artists from all genres and had a different theme each year. I served as the internal producer and primary contact for the team of outside producers for the show. One year the focus was on American music, and we decided to take the telecast outside the White House for the segment on American gospel music. I scoured Washington for the best gospel choir and music director and found them at a very special inner-city church. After the official taping was concluded, the music continued to roll and the Reagans got up on the stage and danced and sang spontaneously. They enjoyed the freedom of the moment and the great sound of the gospel music, which went on for some time before we realized we had better let the church shut down and let the congregants go home—which we finally did, as well.
The most moving story to me about Reagan and prayer was told by Judge William Clark, who some considered to be Reagan’s best friend and was someone I deeply respected. Bill Clark was Reagan’s first National Security Advisor and later Secretary of the Interior and had been with him during his years as Governor of California. It is retold in this way in Paul Kengor’s enlightening book God and Ronald Reagan. In 1968 Clark and Reagan were traveling across the country on a TWA flight. A shaken “Clark informed the governor that Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot. He expected some comment from Reagan in return, but heard nothing. Clark stepped away; when he turned back around he found Reagan in prayer, looking down at his knees, lips moving in silence.”
Also reported in Kengor’s book is Clark’s recounting of how he often stood by Reagan in the Oval Office when he called the families of servicemen and servicewomen who had been killed in active duty, adding that it was Reagan’s practice to always say, “Shall we say a little prayer together?” They would always say yes. And then Reagan would lead an audible prayer with them and for them. Kengor also shared with me how these two men, Clark and Reagan, carried on a quiet secret code they used when troubling news of some kind reached the White House. Both men knew when prayer was needed and they would instinctively remind each other by saying quietly, “DP”—meaning “Divine Providence”—to acknowledge the need to reach out to this Power for help. At the 1980 Republican Convention in Detroit, Reagan dramatically revealed how he felt about prayer. In accepting the nomination of his party, he concluded his remarks this way:
“I’ll confess that I’ve been a little afraid to suggest what I’m going to suggest—I’m more afraid not to—that we begin our crusade joined together in a moment of silent prayer.”
His request was met with a stark quiet throughout the cavernous hall and Reagan ended it all a few minutes later with the way he always liked to sign off—“God bless America”—and then he was off on his campaign, which ultimately took him to the White House.
Barbara Walters, the iconic television journalist, was once invited to the Reagan ranch, Rancho del Cielo, or Heaven’s Ranch, in the Santa Ynez Mountains high above Santa Barbara for one of her televised interviews with Reagan. They sat outside, because the modest adobe ranch house was too small for the film crew to fit inside. Reagan had built the house himself with the help of a few ranch hands. Walters, with the cameras rolling, asked the President what he liked most about life on the ranch. First he talked about going there in the thick of worrisome world problems and finding solace. Then he pointed to the sweeping, majestic view of the Pacific and, with a broad gesture of his hand panning over the magnificent 360-degree view, said that this vista always gave him solace and reminded him of the Bible phrase from Psalm 121, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord.”
Reagan did not make this reference on national television casually or to win votes. It was not written for him by speechwriters or supplied on a teleprompter. It came naturally to him, and he had obviously thought about it many times when moving around the ranch, clearing brush and chopping wood as he liked to do.
Reagan, who loved to ride at the ranch, often said, “There is nothing so good for the mind of a man than the back of a horse.” The agents on his security detail, like John Barletta and earlier Dennis LeBlanc, a former California State Trooper, who had guarded Reagan as Governor, became riding friends, and they could attest to how much Reagan appreciated his rides especially while he was President, and how he used this time in his own meditative way to think about and plan his next moves politically.
Reagan knew his Bible. It sat on the night table next to his bed right alongside the secure phone, which frequently awakened him in the night with news of a crisis somewhere in the world. His Bible was big and old and worn out. Apparently he wanted it that way, because he was certainly sent many new ones by well-meaning people who thought he should read it more. I was frequently asked if I could pass along to the President some religious tract or a Bible—thinking that Reagan might not be acquainted with it!
What most of these people and the general public did not know then was that he had been a Sunday School teacher who never missed a 9:30 a.m. class on Sunday, followed by a youth service. In fact when he attended Eureka College he drove the one hundred miles north to his hometown of Dixon to teach every single Sunday. One of his closest friends in Dixon went off to divinity school, and Reagan thought for a while about going with him. His girlfriend from high school through college was the preacher’s daughter, Margaret Cleaver, whom he expected to marry and whose father served as surrogate father for Reagan, taught him to drive a car, and recommended him for enrollment at Eureka College.
Having been in and out of the Reagans’ bedroom many times, where the First Lady worked daily at an old mahogany kneehole desk, I had often noticed the Bible next to his bed. I decided I would ask him about it and if he actually read it. “Oh, yes,” he said, “and sometimes in the middle of the night.” Then he took me over to the large, worn, leather book and pointed out specific references handwritten in the front of the book and some of the passages in Psalms and elsewhere that had been underlined for quick reference. Examining that book, I saw that it had been put to good use. It was not a fancy, beautifully bound, hand-tooled volume sitting high up on a bookshelf. It was right where he could reach for it. Then while we were talking about it, he stopped and read me two or three passages that were favorites of his—mostly ones of comfort and guidance from the Psalms and Isaiah—again proof that he knew the text and could easily turn to the passages that had helped him. It was an extraordinary privilege for me to be read the Bible by the President of the United States.
Reagan thoroughly identified with the practical Christianity, good works, and relaxed liturgy of the Disciples of Christ Church where he was baptized on June 21, 1922. He was active in this church through his college years, joining in youth activities and in his Sunday School teaching. Reagan later joined the Hollywood Presbyterian Church, and years after that, the Bel Air Presbyterian Church when it was organized and where he remained a member for more than thirty years. He did not officially join the large and modern National Presbyterian Church when he came to Washington, DC. However, he did worship there several times, took communion from its pastor, and was engaged with the pastoral staff.
Worshipping in a church on Sunday was always problematic for the Reagans. When they lived in California, they would often spend weekends at their ranch or might be traveling out of the area. During the eight years of his governorship the Reagans frequently commuted on weekends between Sacramento and Los Angeles. Then during their White House years and especially following the assassination attempt, security was significantly increased. If the President were to attend a church service, everyone in the congregation would be required to pass through magnetometers or metal detectors like at an airport. This precluded his church attendance without disrupting the service and moving the focus from the pulpit to the President. Reagan said he was uncomfortable with that, and so he forfeited attendance. Some critics had a problem with the Reagans’ lack of church attendance—if for no other reason than a President should set an example for the country. Had I not known of Reagan’s deep and personal spiritual convictions, as so many did not, I would have shared this concern—even though church attendance would not necessarily be an accurate way to judge a person’s genuine spiritual commitment.
Like so many of his predecessors, Reagan hosted the world-renowned evangelist and preacher Billy Graham at the White House. Reverend Donn Moomaw, from his home church in Bel Air, also visited the White House on several occasions and officiated at both inaugurations. Reagan also called on John Boyles, an associate pastor at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, for counsel.
After he left office, Reagan and Boyles were in communication about Boyles’ submission to the Washington Post of the President’s first Christmas address to the nation, which featured in the opening section the story of the birth of Jesus. Boyles had been pleased that the paper published the address but disappointed that they edited out the first part, which was the most religious. Years after leaving office, Reagan read this story in the National Presbyterian Church bulletin and wrote Boyles a handwritten note of appreciation from his Los Angeles office. He thanked him for having even submitted his message to the Post in the first place. As Boyles related to me personally, he was taken aback with the fact that Reagan was reading the church bulletin, much less responding to him in such a personal and focused way.
For Reagan the main idea in his practice of Christianity was his subordination to Divine Providence. This gave him not only a sense of security and direction but a desire for service, and a way to keep his personal ambitions in check with what God wanted him to do and to be. It also immunized him, in a way, from the egotism that can swell and swallow, almost unknowingly, any leader. This is the way a Washington Times editorial characterized Reagan’s faith and its impact in his job:
“The faith was a part of all his words. In his ‘Time for Choosing’ speech, Mr. Reagan declared, ‘We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.’ In his first inaugural address, he said, ‘I’m told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day, and I’m deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended us to be free.’
“His works reflected his faith as well. He spoke against abortion and for prayer in schools. He transformed cultural conservatism’s frown at vice into a smile at virtue. Mr. Reagan returned unapologetic patriotism to the national discourse; he restored personal freedom and responsibility as the touchstones of the national philosophy. While he saw moral courage as an essential weapon of free men, he made sure that the Cold Warriors were well-armed and well-equipped.”
Most leaders, including U.S. Presidents, are defined and measured by their achievements under pressure or as the result of some sort of national or personal adversity. After Reagan was shot and while he was recuperating, he wrote in his diary:
“Whatever else happens now, I owe my life to God and will try to serve Him in every way I can.”
He also said, speaking of his would-be assassin:
“I realized I couldn’t ask for God’s help while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed-up angry young man who had shot me. Isn’t that the meaning of the lost sheep? We are all God’s children and therefore equally loved by Him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back into the fold.”
At Reagan’s burial site, in Simi Valley, California, there is an engraved epitaph containing words Reagan wrote that reveals a great deal about the President’s spiritual attitude and could serve as a special Reagan credo:
“I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.”
In 1981 in a speech for the First Annual Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance for Victims of the Holocaust, he said,
“There is an American poem that says humanity, with all its fears and all its hopes, depends on us. As a matter of fact, it was the Pope, at the end of World War II, when the world was so devastated, and yet, we alone remained so strong, who said: ‘America has a genius for great and unselfish deeds, and into the hands of America, God has placed an afflicted mankind.’”
The degree to which Reagan suffered adversity inwardly in his adult life is scarcely known by anyone. We do know that he was devastated by his unexpected divorce from his first wife, the actress Jane Wyman; by a declining film career; by defeat in his first attempt at the nomination for President; by challenges in his relationships with his children; by the major adversity of the assassination attempt that brought him close to death; by physical ailments requiring surgery; and by his final disability. But we do not know how he interpreted or processed these apparent sufferings in his own view of life. There is no record that he dwelt on adversity but he most probably overcame it with his well-documented attitude of trust, faith, and overwhelming optimism. Also, because he did not show any particular self-absorption, depression, or extraordinary introspection, it appears that his character was turned more outward—in a resilient way. If he had only publicly revealed more on this subject, we would be able to fill in the gaps more easily. On the other hand, if he had, he might not have been perceived as a strong, uncomplicated leader. He did not complain or seek sympathy to win support. He didn’t need it.
His tendency was to see adversity and its uses on a global or macro scale, rather than a strictly personal one, and also as a part of God’s design for reformation. He also linked adversity to optimism, because he did not think man should be conquered by trouble but rather use trouble to improve and cast off any type of bondage from exterior forces. Also, he did not link adversity to finality or to death. He believed that man could always improve his situation. You could see that in the way he looked into the eyes of the collectivist farmers we visited one day in China in 1984. He didn’t exactly pity them, but he did provide them with the feeling that there was a better way, a better economic ideal that could be reached. He saw adversity as both a religious problem and a political one, and he saw the solutions in the same way—with his beliefs providing the underpinning and ultimate solution to the problem at hand. He was quietly assessing or judging his life according to what he thought God wanted him to do all along the way, although he would have—wisely—thought it inappropriate to burden anyone else with this self-assessment.
The seasoned but perpetual sunny optimism that was a noticeable element in Reagan’s character was not mere intellectual immaturity or political puffery. He believed that his attitude of hope and enthusiasm could actually help turn economies around, affect the stock market, boost public confidence and spending habits, and generally lift confidence in ways that result in moving a country forward. For Reagan, life was not a roll of the dice or a series of lucky deals. It was his belief that God ultimately held the universe in His hands and that the outcome would be good. He shared that belief in almost every speech he gave.
Reagan had a unique opportunity during his presidency, because of the timing of changing events in the Soviet Union and its leadership, which he made use of. He had earned the right to lead a nation founded on the rejection of religious domination and persecution and on the establishment of an environment of toleration and the protection of an individual’s right to worship or not in whatever way desired. Reagan’s private faith took on a public, global purpose, and he had the opportunity to express it in a way that few people ever have. He did not espouse any specific religious sect, organization, or teaching separate from adherence to the Scriptures.
The Founding Fathers also represented religious plurality and various faith traditions. Jefferson removed selections from the Bible that he believed in and created his own collection of Scriptural writings, now called the Jefferson Bible. For Reagan it was never about sect. His faith was based on a personal relationship with his God, and he called on God as an active presence in his life. I believe he lived a postdenominational life before it was fashionable to state it that way.
Reagan was largely ecumenical and had a healthy respect for Catholics and Jews especially, but he also did not rule out, limit, or criticize any denomination. Our White House staff included persons of many different religions. At an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas in 1984, Reagan said,
“I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the political life of our nation—and always have—and that the church, and by that I mean all churches, all denominations, has had a strong influence on the state. And this has worked to our benefit as a nation. Those who created our country, the Founding Fathers and Mothers, understood that there is a divine order which transcends the human order. They saw the state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral order is religion.”
While ecumenical, Reagan was not a bland or passive religionist, nor did he compartmentalize his faith into a convenient, cloistered part of his life or career. He respected and upheld the importance of the constitutional separation of church and state; however, he never separated himself as President from the divine purpose he saw for his country. The carrying out of this purpose, he felt, was not the province of any particular church or government but rested in the minds and hearts of men and women. That was precisely why, in his view, people needed to be free—free to worship, live, act, create, progress, as they themselves determined.
It brings to mind my own favorite saying of Jefferson, carved in the entablature of the glistening white rotunda memorial to him on the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, surrounded by the famous cherry trees: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” I believe that Reagan, in pursuing what he felt were man’s God-given rights to freedom from tyranny, was on his own crusade to carry out Jefferson’s call.
Reagan’s faith was put to the ultimate test when he assumed the highest office in America, and when he stepped over the threshold, he did not leave his faith behind; he pressed it into greater service. As we have seen, he used it to reason about domestic and foreign policy and in personal matters. Only a few people ever have an opportunity to apply their faith in this way and make it work for them in the highest governmental or private sector offices. Perhaps that is why the Bible admonishes its readers to pray for heads of state and other leaders. In the case of Reagan, he returned the favor.
In Reagan’s mind, faith was woven into every aspect of his life, and he expressed it in deeply moving terms but typically only when applied to the situations, events, tragedies, and policy objectives he navigated as President. He did not evangelize for religious purposes. He also did not generally associate his faith and walk with any sectarian or stridently religiopolitical issues, organizations, rallies, or political action. It wasn’t that he was stopped by his staff from doing so; he wasn’t inclined to. More often than not, he also had the good sense to speak in other people’s voices—quoting extensively from and referring to the well-recognized, broadly respected leaders of the past. He would tell stories of everyday heroic people whose lives gave inspiration to him and were models for him to talk about. In fact he did this so effectively that people were often surprised to learn of the depth of his own faith.
While I have called Reagan an evangelist for conservative ideals and ideas, he did not attempt to convert or to prejudice another’s point of view; instead, he laid out the options. He did not force his voice into anyone’s home, but he was grateful to be welcomed there. He carried the banner for conservatism and the Republican Party, but his standard represented far more than that. Reagan publicly professed his faith on numerous occasions.
Beyond that he did not talk about it informally and personally, and yet he expressed it in every single speech he gave. Reagan had an uncanny sense that a personal expression of this faith would not accrue to his popularity or his general overall acceptance as a leader, and might marginalize some of his constituents and color his actions, especially in regard to his foreign policy initiatives. He was aware that he was President for all Americans, not just the devoted. For a period after Reagan’s death it continued to surprise me that so few people grasped the depth of his faith or knew anything about it. In retrospect, I now believe that was a fortuitous phenomenon, aiding him in the work he had to do and embellishing his stature in history unassociated with much but his specific accomplishments. I believe that was his intent.