The
Bible was clearly important to many American
presidents.
A
few examples:
"I have
often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting
himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God
alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in
worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own
conscience." -- George Washington, letter to the
General Committee of the United Baptist Churches in Virginia
"It
is impossible to govern the world without God and the
Bible."
"Do
not let any one claim to be a true American if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics."
-
George
Washington
* * *
"We
have staked the whole future of American civilization, not
upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked
the future of all our political institutions upon our
capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten
Commandments of God." - James
Madison - fourth president of the United States
& founding Father
* * *
"In
regard to this great book, I have but to say, it is the best
gift God has given to man. All the good Savior gave to the
world was communicated through this book. But for it we
could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable
for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to found
portrayed in it."
"When any
church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole
qualification for membership, the Savior's condensed
statement of the substance of both law and Gospel, 'Thou
shalt love the lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul and thy neighbor as thyself' that church will I
join with all my heart and all my soul."
"That I am
not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have
never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never
spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general,
or of any denomination of Christians in particular....I do
not think I could myself be brought to support a man for
office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, or scoffer at,
religion." [July 31, 1846]
"And in the
end it's not the years in your life that count. It's
the life in your years." -
"America
will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and
lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
ourselves." -
Abraham
Lincoln
* *
*
"Hold
fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties;
write its precepts in your hearts and practice them in your
lives. To the influence of this book we are indebted for all
the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must
look as our guide in the future. Righteousness exalteth a
nation; but sin is a reproach to any people."
-
Ulysses
S. Grant
* *
*
"We must
recognize the fundamental rights of man. There can be no
true national life in our democracy unless we give
unqualified recognition to freedom of religious worship and
freedom of education." -- letter to the Calvert
Associates, 1937 - Franklin
Delano Roosevelt
* *
*
The
whole inspiration of our civilization springs from the
teachings of Christ and the lessons of the prophets. To read
the Bible for these fundamentals is a necessity of American
life. - Herbert
Hoover
* *
*
"The world
is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the
power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of
human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which
our forebears fought are still at issue around the
globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the
generosity of the state, but from the hand of God...... Let
every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we
shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship,
support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival
and the success of liberty...... With a good conscience our
only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds,
let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His
blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's
work must truly be our own." - John
F. Kennedy - Inaugural Address - Friday, January 20, 1961
* *
*
"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. If I could just make a personal
statement of my own -- in these 3 1/2 years I have
understood and known better than ever before the words of
Lincoln, when he said that he would be the greatest fool on
this footstool called Earth if he ever thought that for one
moment he could perform the duties of that office without
help from One who is stronger than all.
There are no
such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits
on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and
wonder." - Ronald
Reagan - (from an address to the University of South
Carolina, Columbia, September 20, 1983)
