Reagan on the place of religion in politics

The co-existence of this world and the next was a continuous and conscious theme in Reagan’s utterances. In his beautiful speech at Pointe du Hoc he said that the soldiers in the Normandy landing had faith “that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.” In his last speech as president, as I’ve noted, he subtlely merged the mundane image of the “city streets” with the divine image of the Shining City on a Hill. And in his farewell message to America, handwritten in a single draft at his dining room table in 1994 as Alzheimer’s was beginning to close in on him, he said: “When the Lord calls me home, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.” That eternal optimism, writes James Lakely, was born of Reagan’s abiding sense that God is always with us and that whatever happens to us, including the manner of our death, is part of God’s plan for us.

Given Reagan’s unusual experience of the closeness of God to our life in this world, it is no surprise that he had articulate ideas about the place of religion in society and politics. Here are excerpts from a talk he gave on that subject at an ecumenical prayer breakfast in August 1984:

I believe that George Washington knew the City of Man cannot survive without the City of God, that the Visible City will perish without the Invisible City….

A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the citizens, the more decent the state. If you practice a religion, whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or guided by some other faith, then your private life will be influenced by a sense of moral obligation, and so, too, will your public life. One affects the other. The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims.

We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions….

Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we’re mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 07, 2004 10:02 AM | Send