The Christian Faith Of Ronald Reagan; From Sunday-school teacher to Oval Office occupant, author Paul Kengor reveals, Ronald Reagan remained deeply devoted to his faith and based his policies on it

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 11, 2004 | by Stephen Goode

It was really no-brainer stuff, but those left-wing Hollywood actor groups loved it. Applause after every line! Then the one time he gives this speech at his church men's group, the pastor comes up afterward, the Rev. Cleveland Kleihauer no one's ever reported his name before; I went and dug it out. The Rev. Kleihauer comes up and says to him, "I appreciate what you're doing here, but there's another 'ism' out there that is just as dangerous. It's called communism. I think you should start warning people about that too."

And Reagan said, "I hadn't given it much thought. That sounds like a good idea." The next time, as his audience was applauding like crazy, he ended his speech by saying: "Now there's another 'ism' out there called communism, and if I ever find out that it is the same kind of threat fascism is, I'll denounce it just as strongly."

There was dead silence. Total nonreaction. You could hear a pin drop, and he awkwardly exited the stage. He'd disappointed his crowd. He'd stumbled upon leftist naivete and actual sympathy to communism. He thanked the Rev. Kleihauer years later for that wake-up call. So you had this Cold War crusade beginning in a church where a man of God alerts Reagan to the evils and dangers of communism. He kept that anticommunist line in his speeches, he never flinched, and he meant every word of it.

Q: You describe Reagan's deep religious faith, yet throughout his presidency he rarely attended church, compared to Jimmy Carter, say, or Bill Clinton, who made great use of photo opportunities afforded by going to church, Bible in hand.

A: Reagan rarely went to church as president because he thought it was a giant burden to the entire congregation, which it was, an enormous burden. The SWAT team would have to be on the roof with sniper rifles. All of the side entrances to the church would be closed, and when you walked in, the Secret Service guys would frisk you.

If Reagan had a phony faith adopted only for political purposes, he could have just gone to church and taken the press corps with him. They then could have shown a beaming Reagan walking to church with a Bible tucked under his arm.

Q: In your book you write, "Reagan's faith was overt and not merely for show."

A: He didn't want to wear his faith on his sleeve in a political way. Reagan thought that was egregious, and he was first turned off by it in the 1976 campaign when he thought Jimmy Carter was doing it. Reagan simply did not want ever to appear to be using faith for political purposes.

When he was outspoken about his faith it was usually for a purpose, but never for getting votes. The most outspoken I've ever seen Reagan on a faith issue was when he went to Moscow in 1988 for the Moscow summit. There he was ending every single statement with "God bless you" and "God bless the Soviet people."

His point was that he wanted the Soviet people to hear the G word, to hear the word "God" coming from the lips of a politician. Reagan thought that he was in what he called a spiritually starved nation, a nation that was very religious before the Bolsheviks declared a 70-year war on religion. So Reagan made sure in his visit that the Russian people heard his religious sentiments as often as he possibly could.