By 1980 the great hope we had felt with the election of fellow evangelical President Jimmy Carter four years earlier had given way to a pervasive sense of his failed promise. We could not ignore the spectacle of the hostages taken in Iran and, closer to home, the long lines at the gas stations, the terrible economy, the general sense of political and social stagnation, and, worst of all, the strengthening of the Soviet Union. As evangelicals we felt desperate to bring America back from this looming catastrophe, which meant we had to get involved before the country was taken over by the radical left. During the Cold War there was a direct relation between the weakening of the United States and the strengthening of the atheistic Soviet Union, and there was no greater harbinger of the dreaded End Times than this godless empire that was the world’s greatest persecutor of Christians.
Reagan had revived the popular theme of godless communism, but evangelicals were among the original architects of disdain and even dread of the Soviet Union and Red China. In 1949, Billy Graham declared, “Communism is inspired, directed, and motivated by the Devil himself. America is at a crossroads. Will we turn to the left-wingers and atheists, or will we turn to the right and embrace the cross?” If Satan had a political affiliation, it had to be with the revolutionary left. Fifteen years later, during Barry Goldwater’s failed presidential bid in 1964, Reagan had taken to the campaign trail, decrying the so-called capitulation of liberals in the face of communist aggression. His images mixed the spiritual with the political even then. “We are being asked to buy our safety from the threat of ‘the bomb’ by selling into permanent slavery our fellow human beings enslaved behind the Iron Curtain . . .” he said. “If we are to believe that nothing is worth the dying, when did this begin? Should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery rather than dare the wilderness? Should Christ have refused the Cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? Are we to believe that all the martyrs of history died in vain?”*
Reagan’s narrative had not changed much in the sixteen years from that rousing oratory to his 1980 presidential campaign. We celebrated a politician who, at long last, spoke the truth. Here was someone who was clear about our ultimate dependence on the Almighty and who got it right by seeing that the church and not the state should have the last word. Reagan finally called a spade a spade: Soviet atheism was the greatest menace ever faced by mankind. We knew that this “evil empire” threatened not only our lives but our right to worship Almighty God. The only members of our community who did not support Reagan were the blue-collar factory workers, most of whom were the children of immigrants and staunch union members, and many filled the pews of New Covenant Tabernacle. These victims of Buffalo’s crumbling steel industry were stuck in a catch-22: like us, they didn’t agree with the secular drift fostered by their own Democratic Party, but if they voted for Reagan, they would hurt the unions that protected their jobs. We felt sorry for them but were confident that, with Reagan gaining ground, our country was finally getting back on track. “If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God,” Reagan memorably observed, “then we will be a nation gone under.”
Evangelicals had played a decisive role in getting Reagan elected, and we were determined to flex that newfound muscle by demanding our politicians pay attention to our dislike of homosexual rights, women’s rights, and smutty lyrics, and urging them to bring prayer back to public schools and morality back into the public conversation. Our political power was local, and we were learning how to use it.
Within five years Paul’s church had become the largest Assembly of God congregation north of the city, with both an elementary and a high school. I had gained some modest fame from my global missionary work, and together we had carved out a place in the broader community of national evangelical leaders. We were young; we were twins; we were “Jewish Believers” and had attracted some media attention, and with that came more and more invitations to participate in large-scale events like the huge General Council of the Assemblies of God, where we participated in debates in front of twenty-five thousand delegates. We also joined several influential organizations, including the National Association of Evangelicals, which was enjoying massive exposure and influence in the wake of Reagan’s 1980 victory.
In March of 1983, Fred Dixon, our early pastor and now a member of my support staff, joined me in attending the annual convention of the NAE held in Orlando, Florida. In theory we went for the workshops as much as anything, but the real reason we were there was to attend Reagan’s speech on Tuesday afternoon. He was the first president to ever address a body of evangelicals. In spite of Jimmy Carter’s unabashed self-identification as a “born-again Christian,” we considered Reagan to be the first president to take us seriously. He not only deserved our respect and loyalty but commanded it. Fred and I were two of the first to enter the ballroom at the Sheraton Towers, and we nailed seats in the fourth row, close enough to feel the stage lights. There it was: the official slate-blue-topped podium with the majestic Seal of the President of the United States hanging on the front. I had never been so close to presidential power, and I was in awe. I had heard people speak of Reagan’s “aura” and, in spite of the fact that such an emanation was a pagan superstition, I was sure I was sensing it in that room that day, even before the man had entered.
The platform filled with smiling officials, many of whom I knew personally. The NAE president, Arthur Evans Gay Jr., an Illinois pastor I had only recently come to know, introduced the president, noting that our NAE community deeply appreciated and valued his love for the truth of the Bible and his commitment to its great moral values. The standing ovation lasted a full thirty seconds before we obeyed Reagan’s gestures to sit down and let him speak. The only African-American on the crowded dais was the infamous John M. Perkins, a rare civil rights leader in our circles, who had organized voter registration in Mississippi in the sixties. He was a remarkable man who had moved to California and set up a large ministry there. I noticed that he smiled but did not clap, only joining in politely—and tepidly—at the conclusion. It gave me momentary pause. I was aware that the division between the Republican Party and African-Americans was deepening during this period. Reagan’s eagerness to cut the federal budget meant many in that community, who were dependent on federal programs, suffered. Added to that were the fissures in the evangelical community—where black churches were typically more progressive, and the white churches leaned conservative. Reverend Perkins was an outlier in that community, and by keeping his hands in his lap during the applause lines, he signaled his distance from the rest of us. That bothered me, but I pushed past it.
There were many reasons most of us were so excited—and relieved—to hear Reagan speak that day. First, it validated us. As powerful as we had become in the public square—swamping the airwaves with ever-expanding media enterprises, spawning Billboard chart-topping music hits, scoring major headlines in national newspapers and magazines, and even sporting a Christian theme park rivaling Disneyland—we just couldn’t shake our inferiority complex. We had historically lacked the economic and social status of the Episcopalians, the ubiquity of Roman Catholics, the prestige of Presbyterians. No matter how many imposing evangelical church buildings dotted the landscape, no matter how many of us had accumulated significant wealth, in our minds we were still the outsiders, the people on the margins, the churches on the wrong side of the tracks. But with Reagan we had upset the apple cart and turned the world on its head. We had brought about a major political victory, not just for the presidency, but in the Senate, where, with our help, the Republicans had regained control after twenty-five years.
But there was another reason to celebrate that day, perhaps a much more important one. We evangelicals had a mandate to do whatever we could to preserve the basic pillars of a Christianized civilization. We were stewards of the culture, and it was eroding under our feet. Homosexuals were demanding public acceptance, Bible reading and prayer were forbidden in schools, obscene language and images could be seen on broadcast television, and masturbation had even become the theme of songs at the top of the pop charts. It gave us hope and reassurance to have a leader who was determined to maintain what was Christian and godly.
We would continue to help Ronald Reagan achieve his objectives in any way possible, even if they weren’t specifically a part of our religious agenda. We needed to keep him in power as long as we could. At the time of his speech, a debate was raging in Congress over a “nuclear freeze,” a proposal presented by Senator Ted Kennedy and one of our own, Senator Mark Hatfield (a Baptist), that would have prevented the deployment of U.S. missiles in Europe. The idea was gaining momentum within Congress and among grassroots groups, but conservatives were overwhelmingly opposed. I only learned later, when I had made friends in Congress, that the day before the Orlando event, the president invited a group of influential Republican leaders and sympathetic members of Congress to the White House to discuss the problem. They urged the president to use his bully pulpit to bring this issue to the voters. Right after that meeting, President Reagan tweaked the speech he would deliver to us the next day.*
“The American experiment in democracy rests on this insight,” he said, when we finally stopped applauding. “Its discovery was the great triumph of our Founding Fathers, voiced by William Penn when he said, ‘If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.’” He explained the evils of modern-day secularism and talked about the erosion of our cherished value systems. Most important, he understood the importance of our work and the importance of faith in the lives of Americans.
Near the end of the speech, Reagan addressed the evils of the Soviet Union and the “sad, bizarre chapter of human history” that was communism. He focused on our steadfast conviction that Bolshevism was the precursor to the Antichrist, who would lead us to the end of days. We understood the connection between leftist movements in the United States and international socialism as a grave danger fostered by progressives—cause enough to defeat their efforts. “We will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom. We will never abandon our belief in God. And we will never stop searching for a genuine peace,” he continued, and then came the pivot. “But we can assure none of these things America stands for through the so-called nuclear freeze solutions proposed by some.” He urged us to use our pulpits to share with our communities the importance of defeating this terrible measure. Reagan’s appeal left me and everyone in that room glowing with the rush of presidential affirmation. The speech went down in history as one of his greatest, and the nuclear freeze measure failed.
Almost a year to the day later, on March 6, 1984, I again attended the NAE convention, this time at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio. Reagan was, for the second time, the keynote speaker, and it was not to be missed. The Gipper was his most engaging, charming, and riveting self. He began with a joke that brought the house down: “Talking to a church audience like this reminds me of a church in a little town in Illinois—Dixon, Illinois—that I used to attend as a boy. One sweltering Sunday morning in July, the minister told us he was going to preach the shortest sermon he had ever given. And then he said a single sentence. ‘If you think it’s hot today, just wait.’” We cheered and laughed and relaxed—we were in good hands.
Reagan peppered the speech with a laundry list of concerns that resonated, point by point, with every member of the audience: the search for religious freedom by the first American settlers; the Founders and their firm faith in God; his own identification with Abraham Lincoln’s bended-knee prayers; and his recollection of a World War II war bond rally where he heard prizefighter turned Army private Joe Louis declare, “I know we’ll win, because we’re on God’s side.”
Reagan masterfully fused matters of church and state and, toggling between the sacred and the secular, the political and the spiritual: the problem of widespread access to pornography and the breakdown of the traditional family; teen pregnancies; big taxing and spending and a weakened military; a downturn in inflation and a cut in the prime rate; a long-awaited spiritual awakening with attendant increased sales in religious books and audiences for Christian broadcasters; and, of course, the intolerable number of abortions performed every day in our nation. The president ended his speech by appealing for the passage of a constitutional amendment permitting prayer in public schools: “I’m convinced that passage of this amendment would do more than any other action to reassert the faith and values that made America great. I urge you and all those listening on television and radio to support this amendment and to let your Senators and Members of Congress know where you stand. And together we can show the world that America is still one nation under God.”
We leapt to our feet, applauding in a thunderous and sustained ovation. The ecstasy was similar to what I had experienced ten years earlier at the altar of that tiny Methodist church. When Reagan conflated biblical theology and Republican politics, the Bible and the GOP platform, my own world expanded immeasurably. All of my work had been geared to serving the Lord, but there was another force within me, a personal ambition, that had not yet found its full expression. I liked the idea of moving a large audience. The accolades, the occasional applause, the fund-raising results after a missionary appeal—all quantified my success. Reagan validated all these drives by showing they served a greater good for the nation. I had once wanted to be like Billy Graham, preaching Jesus to the multitudes and moving them to the altar rails for salvation. Now I wanted to be like both Graham and Reagan, moving those same people from the altar rails into the voting booths.
During Reagan’s speech, something fundamental had shifted inside me. I experienced, as most born-again Christians do, a “turning.” Turning is the start of everything: turning away from sin and toward God is how every Bible-believing convert begins his or her Christian life. As the president finished his speech, I felt as if Jesus himself had extended an invitation to me for another turning. This time it was to move beyond the familiarity of my missionary work and into the more expansive realm of political life. I felt liberated to proceed to a different level of engagement with my community and my country. The next steps weren’t exactly apparent, but I was confident God would make my path clear.