 President Ronald Reagan
President Reagan was raised in the Disciples of Christ Church. He
later became a member of Bel Air Presbyterian Church - a conservative
evangelical church - in Bel Air (Los
Angeles), California
Quotations:
"Prayer has sustained our people in crisis, strengthened us in
times of challenge, and guided us through our daily lives since the
first settlers came to this continent. Our forbearers came not for
gold, but mainly in search of God and the freedom to worship in
their own way.
"We've been a free people living under the law, with faith in our
Maker and in our future. I've said before that 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." -- Remarks
at a White House Ceremony in Observance of National Day of Prayer, 6
May 1982
"Yet today we're told that to protect that first amendment, we
must suppress prayer and expel God from our children's classrooms.
In one case, a court has ruled against the right of children to say
grace in their own school cafeteria before they had lunch. A group
of children who sought, on their own initiative and with their
parents' approval, to begin the schoolday with a 1-minute prayer
meditation have been forbidden to do so. And some students who
wanted to join in prayer or religious study on school property, even
outside of regular class hours, have been banned from doing so.
"A few people have even objected to prayers being said in the
Congress. That's just plain wrong. The Constitution was never meant
to prevent people from praying; its declared purpose was to protect
their freedom to pray.
"The time has come for this Congress to give a majority of
American families what they want for their children -- the firm
assurance that children can hold voluntary prayers in their schools
just as the Congress, itself, begins each of its daily sessions with
an opening prayer.
"With this in mind, last May I proposed to the Congress a measure
that declares once and for all that nothing in the Constitution
prohibits prayer in public schools or institutions. It also states
that no person shall be required by government to participate in
prayer who does not want to. So, everyone's rights -- believers and
nonbelievers alike -- are protected by our voluntary prayer
measure." -- Radio Address to the Nation on Prayer, 18 September
1982
"I know that we share a belief that all people, no matter where
they live, have the right to freedom of religion. This is not a
right that is any government's to give or to take away. It's our
right from birth, because we're all children of God." -- Remarks at
the Annual Convention of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,
10 June 1983
"We are a nation under God. I've always believed that this
blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some divine plan
placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by
people from every corner of the Earth who had a special love for
freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave homeland and
friends, to come to a strange land. And coming here they created
something new in all the history of mankind -- a land where man is
not beholden to government, government is beholden to man.
"George Washington believed that religion, morality, and
brotherhood were the pillars of society. He said you couldn't have
morality without religion. And yet today we're told that to protect
the first amendment, we must expel God, the source of all knowledge,
from our children's classrooms. Well, pardon me, but the first
amendment was not written to protect the American people from
religion; the first amendment was written to protect the American
people from government tyranny.
"Indeed, there is nothing in the Constitution at all about public
education and prayer. There is, however, something very pertinent in
the act that gave birth to our public school system -- a national
act, if you will. It called for public education to see that our
children -- and quoting from that act -- ``learned about religion
and morality.''
"Well, the time has come for Congress to give a majority of
American families what they want for their children -- a
constitutional amendment making it unequivocally clear that children
can hold voluntary prayer in their schools." -- Remarks at a Spirit
of America Rally in Atlanta, Georgia, 26 January 1984
"More and more Americans believe that loving God in their hearts
is the ultimate value. Last year, not only were Year of the Bible
activities held in every State of the Union, but more than 25 States
and 500 cities issued their own Year of the Bible proclamations. One
schoolteacher, Mary Gibson, in New York raised $4,000 to buy Bibles
for working people in downtown Manhattan.
"Nineteen eighty-three was the year more of us read the Good
Book. Can we make a resolution here today? -- that 1984 will be the
year we put its great truths into action?
"My experience in this office I hold has only deepened a belief
I've held for many years: Within the covers of that single Book are
all the answers to all the problems that face us today if we'd only
read and believe.
"Let's begin at the beginning. God is the center of our lives;
the human family stands at the center of society; and our greatest
hope for the future is in the faces of our children. Seven thousand
Poles recently came to the christening of Maria Victoria Walesa,
daughter of Danuta and Lech Walesa, to express their belief that
solidarity of the family remains the foundation of freedom.
"God's most blessed gift to His family is the gift of life. He
sent us the Prince of Peace as a babe in a manger. I've said that we
must be cautious in claiming God is on our side. I think the real
question we must answer is, are we on His side?" -- Remarks at the
Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, 30 January
1984
"I know one thing I'm sure most of us agree on: God, source of
all knowledge, should never have been expelled from our children's
classrooms. The great majority of our people support voluntary
prayer in schools." -- Remarks at the Annual Convention of the
National Religious Broadcasters, 30 January 1984
"Let us pledge to conduct ourselves with generosity, tolerance,
and openness toward all. We must respect the rights and views of
every American, because we're unshakably committed to democratic
values. Our Maker would have it no less.
"So, please use your pulpits to denounce racism, anti-Semitism,
and all ethnic or religious intolerance as evils, and let us make it
clear that our values must not restrict, but liberate the human
spirit in thought and in deed." -- Remarks at the Annual Convention
of the National Association of Evangelicals in Columbus, Ohio, 6
March 1984
"I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the
political life of our nation -- and always has -- 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.
" . . .
"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.
"Religion played not only a strong role in our national life; it
played a positive role. The abolitionist movement was at heart a
moral and religious movement; so was the modern civil rights
struggle. And throughout this time, the state was tolerant of
religious belief, expression, and practice. Society, too, was
tolerant.
"But in the 1960's this began to change. We began to make great
steps toward secularizing our nation and removing religion from its
honored place.
"In 1962 the Supreme Court in the New York prayer case banned the
compulsory saying of prayers. In 1963 the Court banned the reading
of the Bible in our public schools. From that point on, the courts
pushed the meaning of the ruling ever outward, so that now our
children are not allowed voluntary prayer. We even had to pass a law
-- we passed a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to
allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after
classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already
enjoy with no opposition.
"The 1962 decision opened the way to a flood of similar suits.
Once religion had been made vulnerable, a series of assaults were
made in one court after another, on one issue after another. Cases
were started to argue against tax-exempt status for churches. Suits
were brought to abolish the words 'under God' from the Pledge of
Allegiance and to remove 'In God We Trust' from public documents and
from our currency.
"Today there are those who are fighting to make sure voluntary
prayer is not returned to the classrooms. And the frustrating thing
for the great majority of Americans who support and understand the
special importance of religion in the national life -- the
frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim
they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and
openmindedness. Question: Isn't the real truth that they are
intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in
our lives.
"If all the children of our country studied together all of the
many religions in our country, wouldn't they learn greater tolerance
of each other's beliefs? If children prayed together, would they not
understand what they have in common, and would this not, indeed,
bring them closer, and is this not to be desired? So, I submit to
you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance on this issue
may not be tolerant at all.
"When John Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he said
that his church would not dictate his Presidency any more than he
would speak for his church. Just so, and proper. But John Kennedy
was speaking in an America in which the role of religion -- and by
that I mean the role of all churches -- was secure. Abortion was not
a political issue. Prayer was not a political issue. The right of
church schools to operate was not a political issue. And it was
broadly acknowledged that religious leaders had a right and a duty
to speak out on the issues of the day. They held a place of respect,
and a politician who spoke to or of them with a lack of respect
would not long survive in the political arena.
"It was acknowledged then that religion held a special place,
occupied a special territory in the hearts of the citizenry. The
climate has changed greatly since then. And since it has, it
logically follows that religion needs defenders against those who
care only for the interests of the state.
"There are, these days, many questions on which religious leaders
are obliged to offer their moral and theological guidance, and such
guidance is a good and necessary thing. To know how a church and its
members feel on a public issue expands the parameters of debate. It
does not narrow the debate; it expands it.
"The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as
morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are
necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because
we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only
those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy
the tolerance it requires in order to survive.
"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.
"I submit to you that the tolerant society is open to and
encouraging of all religions. And this does not weaken us; it
strengthens us, it makes us strong. You know, if we look back
through history to all those great civilizations, those great
nations that rose up to even world dominance and then deteriorated,
declined, and fell, we find they all had one thing in common. One of
the significant forerunners of their fall was their turning away
from their God or gods.
"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." -- Remarks
at an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas, 23 August 1984
"As Americans of different religions find new meaningfulness in
their beliefs, we do so together, returning together to the bedrock
values of family, hard work, and faith in the same loving and
almighty God. And as we welcome this rebirth of faith, we must even
more fervently attack ugly intolerance. We have no place for haters
in America.
"Well, let me speak plainly: The United States of America is and
must remain a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. Our very
unity has been strengthened by this pluralism. That's how we began;
this is how we must always be. The ideals of our country leave no
room whatsoever for intolerance, anti-Semitism, or bigotry of any
kind -- none. The unique thing about America is a wall in our
Constitution separating church and state. It guarantees there will
never be a state religion in this land, but at the same time it
makes sure that every single American is free to choose and practice
his or her religious beliefs or to choose no religion at all. Their
rights shall not be questioned or violated by the state." -- Remarks
at the International Convention of B'nai B'rith, 6 September 1984
"We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson,
for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all
beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened
by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we
command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church
and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or
not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who
believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their
belief.
"At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state
establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all
religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be
strictly neutral. And government should not make it more difficult
for Christians, Jews, Muslims, or other believing people to practice
their faith. And that's why, when the Connecticut Supreme Court
struck down a statute -- and you may not have heard about this; it
was a statute protecting employees who observed the Sabbath. Well,
our administration is now urging the United States Supreme Court to
overturn the Connecticut Court decision. This is what I mean by
freedom of religion, and that's what we feel the Constitution
intends." -- Remarks to Members of the Congregation of Temple Hillel
and Jewish Community Leaders in Valley Stream, New York, 26 October
1984
"I believe that the most essential element of our defense of
freedom is our insistence on speaking out for the cause of religious
liberty. I would like to see this country rededicate itself
wholeheartedly to this cause. I join you in your desire that the
Protestant Churches of America, the Catholic Church, and the Jewish
organizations remember the members of their flock who are in prison
or in jeopardy in other countries. We are our brothers' keepers, all
of us. And I hope the message will go forth from this conference: To
prisoners of conscience throughout the world, take heart; you have
not been forgotten. We, your brothers and sisters in God, have made
your cause our cause, and we vow never to relent until you have
regained the freedom that is your birthright as a child of God." --
Remarks at a Conference on Religious Liberty, 16 April 1985
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