The Religious Reagan
Spiritual influences on the president's life were strong and varied.
By Elizabeth Eisenstadt-Evans | posted 8/01/2004 12:00AM
Ronald Reagan's spiritual pilgrimage has been a topic of great interest, and sometimes heated debate, among evangelicals.
In his conscientiously researched "spiritual life" of the 20th century's "patron saint" of small-government conservatism, Grove City College political science professor Paul Kengor has added a relatively new dimension to the Reagan biography: the President as a man of deeply-rooted faith in a providential God.
Kengor's sweeping examination of the spiritual quest of the man he calls a "practical Christian" should quiet the controversy about whether Reagan had an entrenched faith. Reagan's faith was not only sincere and vocalized throughout his life, Kengor asserts, it also provided fuel for the fire of his single-minded determination to bring down communism.
It is both fitting and revealing that Kengor dedicates his volume to Reagan's mother Nelle. There is little doubt that she was the anchor of the family, a woman of optimism, leadership abilities, and great piety.
The young Reagan boys, Ronald (nicknamed Dutch) and Neil (called Moon) probably turned to Nelle often for spiritual help and comfort. Jack Reagan, their father, was a shoe salesman who moved the family from one Illinois town to another. Kengor reports that before they finally settled in Dixon, the young boy who one day would be President had lived in five different towns and 12 rented apartments, leaving him lonely and introspective.
A Catholic, Jack Reagan left the children's religious upbringing mostly in the hands of his extraordinary wife. It was Nelle who introduced Ronald to an evangelical novel that would have a lasting effect on his life. Written by Harold Bell Wright at the beginning of the 20th century, That Printer of Udell's is the tale of Dick, a runaway boy with an alcoholic father whose fortunes turn better after a "practical Christian" offers him a job. The stark moral contrast between right and wrong in the novel, and the emphasis on local, faith-based solutions to social problems, apparently left a deep mark on young Ronald.
Kengor points out that throughout his pre-college years, Reagan's mentors were, by and large, profoundly committed Christians who imbued him with a strong sense of morality and an "unshakable" faith.
It was the Dixon years, Kengor asserts, that "instilled in Reagan the conviction that God had a special plan for everyone, and for America as a whole."
Throughout his life, according to Kengor, Reagan had the sense that America has a special calling under God to bring freedom to the world. In the 1960s, Reagan gave a speech supporting Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater that became a byword among the Republican right.
Borrowing a phrase from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Reagan said U.S. citizens have an obligation to oppose atheistic communism: "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny."
Much of this spiritual biography traces the evolution of Reagan's understanding of his own increasingly vocal role in bringing that rendezvous about.
The writer traces the roots of Reagan's zealous opposition to Soviet repression to the time he spent in Hollywood. A popular after-dinner speaker, the then-actor often received energetic audience approval for condemning fascism.
But according to Kengor, it was a "man of God in a house of God" who informed Reagan of the dangers of communism and suggested adding it to his catalogue of threats. Kengor says Reagan's assault on communism often met with a cool reception among the same groups.
August 2004, Vol. 48, No. 8
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