Where did America's political leaders, as defenders of the long-standing Christian social order, take their stand in America's unrelenting move toward Boomer Secular-Humanism – and "democracy by judicial decree"?

Nixon had been raised in a Quaker home, second of five boys, in a very Quaker community (Whittier, California). Nixon's mother was the product of two centuries of Quaker heritage.  However, his Methodist father became a Quaker only in marrying Nixon's mother, and when Nixon was thirteen, he and his father went forward together at a local revival to commit themselves to Christ.  In high school Nixon proved himself to be an excellent student and was awarded his senior year the prestigious Harvard Club prize. But disappointment accompanied all his hard-earned successes.  He lost a hard-fought election for the position as student body president, was never popular with the girls, and his family could not pay the balance of the cost of a Harvard education.¹  So instead he headed off to the local Whittier College.

In his senior year in college, his Christian faith was deeply shaken by his brother's death, and by extensive exploration of the traditions and claims of his Christian faith.  Although he would continue to identify himself as a Christian, and observe rather normal Christian practices, his actual spiritual life from then on would always remain a very private matter.

Receiving a generous scholarship, Nixon headed off to Duke Law School, again doing very well, graduating summa cum laude in 1937.  But with the Depression in full swing, jobs were just not to be found (a Harvard degree would have helped, which Nixon sadly was always aware of) and he returned to his hometown to practice law there.  Here he met and two years later (1940) married a local school teacher, Pat Ryan.

In early 1942, in response to America's entry into World War Two, the Nixons moved to Washington for him to take up a position in the bureaucracy, a job which Nixon ended up hating.  He soon gained entry into the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant junior grade and in mid-1943 was moved closer to the action in the South Pacific. Here he rose quickly in rank as an administrative officer and would serve until the beginning of 1946.  However, he would remain in the Naval Reserves all the way up until he retired at the rank of commander in 1966.

At the beginning of 1946 Nixon was called back to California by the local Republican Party, to take up the electoral campaign for Congress against the Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis.  Questioning Voorhis's intelligence and political sympathies (suggesting that they were Communist in nature) he soundly defeated his opponent that November.

In Washington, Nixon was active in his support of the Marshall Plan, and also the investigation into the extent of Communist infiltration into American politics, especially at its highest levels.  In 1948 he took the lead in pushing forward the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigation into the activities of Alger Hiss.  This would begin the problems Nixon would have henceforth with the members of America's intellectual community, who were fully convinced of Hiss's innocence, and angry over what they considered to be Nixon's unwarranted obsession with a "Red Threat" endangering America.  Of course, time would prove that Nixon was entirely correct in the Hiss matter.  And indeed, Nixon was onto the dangers of the rising Cold War long before many other Americans understood the challenges and dangers involved in this new form of ideological battle.

Motivating Nixon was certainly some form of continuing influence of his Quaker upbringing.  Nixon's no-nonsense approach to moral matters formed the very heart of his personal view of life, making him both certain and inflexible in his approach to his public, political life.  But there was also another side to his character, certainly also of Quaker origin, in that he spent much time in the Bible, and in quiet prayer, which he himself stated was to listen to God – not tell God what to do.  In this he was much like his Quaker mother: very strict when it came to ideas of moral performance, but very private when it came to matters of personal faith.

Nixon knew the Bible well, but did not include Biblical references in his public addresses as president.  And although he frequently referenced God, he seldom spoke of Jesus.

Yet he was well-aware of America's Christian history, and in his 1972 Thanksgiving Address underlined the fact that Puritan founder John Winthrop was most correct in identifying America as God's "city set upon a hill," that it was important to follow the Puritan heritage in being "the light of the world," and that it had always been America's call by God, and source of the country's greatness, to provide spiritual leadership to that world.  He also stated that every American president had found cause to turn to God, ultimately leaving office with a very deep religious faith.

As president, Nixon often held worship services in the White House, with a variety of pastors of all faiths (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish) leading the various services. It served several purposes: cutting down the uproar of press, protesters and just the curious that accompanied his Sunday attendance at local churches; setting some kind of religious tone to life in the White House; and, of course, helping his political image among his many Christian supporters nationwide.²

Perhaps even more significant in defining the religious character of the Nixon presidency was the close relationship Nixon cultivated with the "power of positive thinking" pastor Norman Vincent Peale of New York City's Marble Collegiate Church, but even more importantly the evangelist Billy Graham, with whom Nixon developed a close friendship, perhaps the closest of all.  They met, discussed, prayed together constantly.  But ultimately that friendship would have to pay a huge price for the scandal that ultimately broke Nixon, indeed, broke many of the Nixon circle: Watergate.

Because ultimately what will always bring Americans to measure Nixon as a Christian was Watergate, from Nixon's vulgar language and commentaries on America's various social groups, to ultimately his effort to cover up the whole mess of the break-in.

It is a bit reminiscent of the Biblical King David, Israel's most beloved king, who was caught by the prophet Nathan trying to cover up his affair with Bathsheba, and the depth David was willing to go (having her loyal husband killed in battle) in the affair, in order to also cover up the birth of the child that developed out of this misadventure.  Both Nixon's and David's crises pointed to a problem that has never been resolved by man – how so easily tremendous power in the hands of a fully sovereign ruler can come to destroy the integrity of that same individual. David repented; Nixon resigned.  Both lived on after that.  But the favor they had once enjoyed (Nixon's 60 percent vote in 1972, for instance) would be forever ruined after that.  Worse, Nixon is still today not really remembered for all the ways he served his country extremely well as president.  It seems instead that he will always be remembered by generations to come as Nixon, the evil president.

¹They needed that money to pay for the health care of Nixon's ailing older-brother Harold, who died of tuberculosis in 1933 (as had a younger brother Arthur in 1925) – leaving Nixon deeply shattered over his brothers' deaths.

²In 1973 the atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair tried to get a federal court to shut down these White House services.

The individual left with the responsibility of getting America past this huge mess was indeed a profoundly deep Christian.  He was of course an all-around good guy, able to pull off one of the greatest feats in American political history which is to get both his Democrat and Republican colleagues in Congress to like and respect him deeply.

In his college days he proved to be an outstanding athlete, whom professional football teams wanted badly to recruit upon graduation.  But Ford chose to go to Yale Law School instead.  And thus his career headed in a political rather than an athletic direction.  He served in the Navy during World War Two, first as a physical trainer, then aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, where he experienced the horror of sea battles with the Japanese.  After the war he returned to Grand Rapids to take up law practice. And in 1948 he ran for the local House seat in Congress, and was easily elected.  In fact, he would be easily re-elected to that same House seat thereafter – all the way up to his Vice-Presidential appointment in 1973.

Spending most of his time in Washington, he and his wife Betty were very active in the Episcopal Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill in Alexandria (Virginia), and Ford was a regular participant with fellow congressmen in a weekly prayer breakfast they held together.

But the real measure of Ford as a Christian was how he handled the most important responsibility of his presidency, dropped into his lap immediately upon taking that responsibility in August of 1974: getting the nation past this horrible social-moral trauma of Watergate.  The Democrats were prepared to pursue this matter for however long it took to destroy Nixon, and probably much of the country's remaining moral nerve along with it.  After a month of constant prayer over the matter, Ford did the one thing that the nation needed most: forgiveness, so that the nation could move ahead in its existence.   He knew well that this would cost him his standing with many of his old Congressional friends.  He knew that if he had any thought to continue national service as president, he was undercutting that possibility, probably irreparably.  But a month into his office as president, after Sunday morning worship, he returned to the White House to announce to the world that he was issuing a comprehensive presidential pardon for Nixon.  The Democrats, and even many Republicans were outraged.  They wanted revenge for Nixon's acts of injustice, not pardon.

But for the well-being of the country this was absolutely the right decision.  And he was able to make this decision because he was a Christian, not a Secular "peace and social justice" warrior.

Forgiveness always comes at a huge price, one that human pride finds very difficult to muster.  The human ego instinctively prefers revenge – and has well-developed means by which to rationalize or justify that burning desire.  That's why we hire lawyers: to achieve "justice."  But forgiveness is the most important of all Christian virtues, powerful in the way it restores broken life (which "justice" seldom achieves).

God forgave man by placing his son on that cruel Roman cross, and Jesus uttered those words of that same forgiveness even as he was dying.  Christians – not social justice warriors – are supposed to understand the totally irrational value of forgiveness, even when it comes (as it always does) at a huge price.  But it is a price that ultimately saves, saves big, much bigger than "social justice" (raw revenge).³

And that was Ford the Christian, acting in a totally Christ-like manner, in order to save his nation from its self-destructive quest for "justice."  It cost Ford dearly, to save America from itself.  But he did, and America moved forward, amazingly quickly afterwards.

It had to have inspired Graham and others who had put so much trust in Nixon, and felt so deeply betrayed by Watergate.  But ultimately Graham and some others moved on, even rebuilt a relationship with the disgraced former president, and Nixon himself moved on, actually to serve as wise counsel to future presidents and political officials.  The social justice warriors, of course, never forgave Nixon, and were able to write that unforgiveness into their history books, even elementary and high school textbooks, ones that would remember Nixon only as that evil president.

But didn't the social justice warriors forgive Ted Kennedy for Chappaquiddick?  No, not really.  They just simply put it out of their minds and thus avoided having to pay some kind of personal price in the matter.  It was simply as if the event never actually happened.  That's not forgiveness.  That's politics.

³Thus it was that unlike the British and French who took revenge on Germany after World War One – and soon paid a heavy price in the form of Nazi revenge paid back to Britain and France – Truman was quick to forgive Germany and Japan after World war Two ... and bring them into close friendship with America.

Carter grew up in a family of non-conformists living in an out-of-the-way small town of Plains in Southwestern Georgia.  All of his family went off in different directions, Jimmy Carter taking the road of a regular church-attending born-again-Baptist (much like his father, though not his rather independent-minded and socially quite "Liberal" mother).  Carter's dream growing up was to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.  But he had to take a more normal post-high school route of attending Georgia state colleges for two years before finally being admitted to the Academy.  Here (1943-1946) he spent the war-years training to become a naval officer.  He did quite well academically, also continuing to maintain his deep Christian convictions and loyalties. And he did so as well during his years serving as a nuclear engineer in the world o f the submarine.  But when his father died in 1953, he left the navy to take over part of (and soon rebuild) the family farm, where back in Plains he became, like his father, a very active member of the local Baptist church.  Here he also followed his mother's path in resisting the enormous pressures placed on him to fall in line with the segregationist mindset of the local community.

In 1962 he turned to politics, defeating an opponent in a very dirty race waged against Carter for a seat in the Georgia state Senate.  Here he proved to be a very hard-working legislator (actually a compulsion to stay on top of every detail in every matter possible, which would always haunt his managerial style).  He also tended to be very critical of the flaws or imperfections of his political colleagues – which tended to make him something of a political loner in the state capital. But he got things done.

But when he then chose to run for the position of Georgia governor in 1966,⁴ he did not even qualify for the Democratic Party runoff, and ultimately the spot went to the arch-segregationist Lester Maddox.  This defeat threw Carter into something of a personal crisis. But with the help of his evangelist sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton, and some time in prayer, Bible study, and reflection, he underwent something of yet another born-again experience.  This ultimately led him to take time off to do door-to-door evangelistic work in the North (Pennsylvania and Massachusetts), most notably in impoverished Hispanic communities.

But in 1970 he returned to Georgia, again running for the Democratic Party candidacy as governor (hiding his Liberal attitudes away from public view) and this time gaining the Democratic Party nomination and thus also the governor's office at the capital in Atlanta.  During the campaign he never answered the Liberal attacks of the Atlanta media, which by doing so gave off the impression that he was indeed the segregationist they accused him of being, which actually helped build his vote in rural Georgia!  But as governor (1971-1975) he was quick to reveal himself to be not the White segregationist as many had been led to believe.⁵

His big push as governor was in the area of massive bureaucratic restructuring, extensive educational programming for the poor, racial integration, and environmental protection, issues not that different from the ones going on in Washington at the time.  Meanwhile, since Georgia governors were limited to a single term, Carter realized early on that he needed to look more broadly at his options if he were to remain in the business of politics.  His attempts to bring notice to his name in the 1972 Democratic National Convention got him nowhere. But in 1973 he was able to get David Rockefeller to make him a part of Rockefeller's prestigious Trilateral Commission (set up that year to promote international cooperation among Japan, Western Europe and North America) – finally bringing some degree of national notice to Carter.  Also, Robert Strauss, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, asked Carter if he would head up the party's Congressional Campaign Committee, to help Democratic Party candidates in the 1974 Congressional midterm elections.  This would put Carter in close relationship with national politicians.  And thus when the 1976 elections swung into view, Carter was in a position to gain an early lead in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.  Suddenly the Carter name was on everybody's lips. Who was this inspiring new face out of Georgia?

In the campaign, much attention was paid to Carter's frequent acknowledgement of his "born-again" relationship with God in Jesus Christ, something that many of the more secular press and even the old staid denominations knew little about at that point.  But like Kennedy in 1960, Carter was very careful to distinguish between his personal faith and his approach to the civic duties of the U.S. presidency.  Mostly, America came to understand what it was that Carter was trying to clarify in his very Baptist idea of the absolute separation of church and state.  Strength in one area did not mean weakness in the other.  They were just two different worlds.

Well maybe.  Certainly Carter made it clear that Scripture gave no prescriptions on handling environmental problems, health care programs, national educational policy, etc.  Those were matters of state, not religion, although certainly informed by a Christian sense of charity for the poor and weak, and the key understanding of the basic equality of all (and thus equal importance of all) in the nation.  And indeed Carter had been very strong on this matter as Georgia governor.

In November, 1976, he was elected president and certainly tried to honor his Christian precepts while serving in that office.  But, as already noted, high principles and complex realities were not easily blended.  When he tried to pursue high principles, things messed up quickly on the political playing fields.  But he was a fast learner, and ultimately found that high principle is best served by a strong understanding of the reality of human nature and behavior (thus Political Realism) – which Christianity itself has no particular argument with or opposition to (unlike Humanism!).

As president, Carter was actually less likely than his predecessors to make public demonstration of his personal faith, sensitive to the possibility of being accused of forgetting his promise to keep church and state separate during his presidency. Even Billy Graham was almost never seen around the White House, although a big part of this was a result of some harsh words exchanged during the Carter-Ford contest, when Graham proved rather clearly to be a Ford supporter. ⁶

Nonetheless, prayers, Bible study and Christian spiritual reflection were a strong part of the Carter presidency, all the way to the end of his four-year presidency. And if nothing else, this certainly helped introduce the nation to the idea of the more evangelical, born-again side of the Christian faith (which was also being pushed forward by the growing charismatic movement of the 1970s and after).

⁴He could have so easily won the position as Congressman that year if he had run for the House seat rather than the governorship.  But a Congressional seat would have probably ended the possibilities of his finding the way to the White House as he ultimately did.

⁵The seemingly gentle Carter could get very tough – even cynical – as a campaigner … and then once in office return to being the high-minded individual that he was capable of being.

⁶They would, however, over the coming years develop a quite close relationship.