Ronald Reagan's Faith, Not Just Policies, Undermined Communism
The author of God and Ronald Reagan discusses the spiritual life of America's 40th president
Interview by Rob Moll | posted 6/01/2004 12:00AM
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Who was Rev. Cleveland Kleihauer, and how did he encourage Reagan's opposition to communism?
Reagan was an after-dinner speaker, and he would give this speech blasting Nazism. This has always been a problem with the left, they're fantastic about going after racism and Nazism and fascism, but then when they come to communism, that other totalitarianism, they're just not as tough on it. Reagan changed that speech at the suggestion of Rev. Kleihauer, and he started saying that if communism ever becomes a similar threat, he's going to condemn it just as strongly. And he left the stage to dead silence, when typically he left to shouts and cheers. Reagan had stumbled upon that fault line of the Hollywood left naiveté to communism and in some cases even sympathy.
That was an awakening for Reagan, and he got it from a minister. His crusade begins there. Reagan's crusade begins in a house of God when a man of God alerts him to the communist threat.
Today religion is often seen as oppressive, either in Islam or here when people refer to the "Christian Taliban." But for Reagan religion was necessary for freedom.
That's what he believed. He believed that God wanted people to be free. Actually, George Bush has the same belief. Bush says the exact same thing. God intended for people to be free, and he believed in those inalienable rights that John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson described: life, liberty, and happiness. Reagan believed in that. God intended people to be free. Any intrusion on those basic freedoms was unbiblical.
You didn't have to look far to see the statements of Soviet leaders to see evidence of that. Lenin said, "we do not believe in God." It was an atheistic empire, and what really appalled Reagan was you had these inherently religious, good Russian people who were being held captive to an ideology.
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Related Elsewhere:
More Christianity Today articles on Ronald Reagan includes:
President Reagan and the Bible | He speaks out strongly for the importance of Scripture. (June 07, 2004)
"Trust but Verify" | Ronald Reagan's faith. (March 29, 2004)
Remembering Ronald Reagan | What Billy Graham, Jim Dobson, Pope John Paul II, and others are saying about the death of the former president—and what he said about evangelicals. (June 07, 2004)
God and Ronald Reagan is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.
An excerpt from the book is available from Beliefnet.
Paul Kengor also wrote an article for National Review Online about Reagan's faith.
More on Paul Kengor is available on his web site.
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