(b.February 6, 1911), was the 40th President of the United States, 1981–89; the oldest President elected; survived assassination attempt, March 30, 1981; Governor of California, 1966–74; switched from being a liberal Democrat to the Republican Party, 1962; actor, making over 50 movies in his career; president of the Screen Actor’s Guild, 1959–60; married Nancy Davis, 1952, children Patti and Ron; president of the Screen Actor’s Guild, 1947–52; Captain in the U.S. Army Air Corp during World War II; first marriage to Jane Wyman, children Maureen and Michael; announcer for radio station in Davenport, Iowa, and WHO Radio, Des Moines, Iowa; and graduated from Eureka College, Illinois, 1932.
On March 30, 1961, at the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, Ronald Reagan stated:
All other revolutions simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. Here for the first time the Founding Fathers—that little band of men so advanced beyond their time that the world has never seen their like since—evolved a government based on the idea that you and I have the God-given right and ability within ourselves to determine our own destiny.3586
On October 27, 1964, in a nationally televised address on behalf of Senator Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan stated:
During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign. … this is the man who said to his 19–year-old son, “There’s no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life upon that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start.” This is not a man who could carelessly send other people’s sons to war. …
When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be. He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. …
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain.
Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it’s a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we not pay.” There is a point beyond which they must not advance. … 3587
In January of 1967, the same week of his Inauguration as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan stated at a Prayer Breakfast:
Belief in the dependence on God is essential to our state and nation. This will be an integral part of our state as long as I have anything to do with it.3588
In 1972, at the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast, Governor Reagan stated:
I think our nation and the world need a spiritual revival as it has never been needed before … a simple answer … a profound and complete solution to all the trouble we face.3589
In 1973, Governor Ronald Reagan stated:
The classical Liberal, during the Revolutionary time, was a man who wanted less power for the king and more power for the people. He wanted people to have more say in the running of their lives and he wanted protection for the God-given rights of the people. He did not believe those rights were dispensations granted by the king to the people, he believed that he was born with them. Well, that today is the Conservative.3590
On December 7, 1973, at the Convention of the Southern GOP, Atlanta, Georgia, Governor Ronald Reagan stated:
There is a hunger in this country today—a hunger for spiritual guidance.3591
In 1973, as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan stated:
With freedom goes responsibility. Sir Winston Churchill once said you can have 10,000 regulations and still not have respect for the law. We might start with the Ten Commandments. If we lived by the Golden Rule, there would be no need for other laws.3592
In introducing evangelist Billy Graham to a rally in southern California, Governor Ronald Reagan commented:
There is no need in our land today greater than the need to rediscover our spiritual heritage.
Why is a representative of government here? To welcome with humble pride a man whose mission in life has been to remind us that in all our seeking, in all our confusion, the answer to each problem is to be found in the simple words of Jesus of Nazareth, who urged us to love one another.3593
In a speech as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan stated:
I believe this nation hungers for a spiritual revival; hungers to once again see honor placed above political expediency; to see government once again the protector of our liberties, not the distributor of gifts and priviledges.
Government should uphold, not undermine those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded—religion, education, and above all, the family.3594
In 1974, as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan stated:
If a bureaucrat had been writing the Ten Commandments, a simple rock slab would not have been near enough room. Those simple rules would have read: “Thou Shalt Not, unless you feel strongly to the contrary, or for the following stated exceptions, see paragraphs 1–10 subsection #A.”3595
The teaching of respect for the law cannot be left to education alone. It is a responsibility we all must assume, in our daily lives, in every school, in our churches, throughout our social structure.3596
On June 1, 1976, in a television interview with Reverend Adrian Rogers, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention and George Otis, director of High Adventure Ministries, Ronald Reagan spoke:
I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t call upon God, and hopefully thank Him as often as I called upon Him. And, yes, in my own experience there came a time when there developed a new relationship with God and it grew out of a need. So, yes, I have had an experience that could be described as “born again.”3597
When asked by a reporter, “Governor, whom are you patterning your life after?” Ronald Reagan answered:
Oh, that’s very easy: The Man from Galilee.3598
The March 6, 1980, issue of The Los Angeles Times quoted Ronald Reagan as he spoke on the question of Gay Rights:
A fellow asked me if I believe that they should have the same civil rights, and I said I think they do, and should have, but that my criticism of the gay rights movement—it is asking for a recognition and acceptance of an alternative life style which I do not believe society can condone, nor can I.
You could find that in the Bible. It says that in the eyes of the Lord, this is an abomination.3599
During the 1980 presidential debates Ronald Reagan spoke:
I feel a great hunger in America for a spiritual revival, for a belief that a law must be based on a higher law, for a return to traditions and values that we once had.3600
In 1980, Ronald Reagan admonished:
The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the healing of America. … Our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal.3601
On Tuesday, January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan chose as the Scripture for his Presidential Inauguration:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and heal their land.(II Chronicles 7:14)3602
On Tuesday, January 20, 1981, in his Inaugural Address, President Reagan stated:
Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God. …
I am told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day, and for that I am deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each Inauguration Day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer. …
The crisis we are facing today … does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves, and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God’s help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans. God bless you, and thank you.3603
On February 5, 1981, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Ronald Reagan stated:
An unknown author wrote of a dream and in the dream was walking down the beach beside the Lord. As they walked, above him in the sky was reflected each stage and experience of his life. Reaching the end of the beach, and of his life, he turned back, looked down the beach, and saw the two sets of footprints in the sand. … He looked again and realized that every once in a while there was one set of footprints. And each time there was only one set of footprints, it was when the experience reflected in the sky was one of despair, of desolation, of great trial or grief in his life. …
He turned to the Lord and said, “You said that if I would walk with you, you would always be beside me and take my hand. Why did you desert me? Why are you not there in my times of greatest need?” And the Lord said, “My child, I did not leave you. Where you see only one set of footprints, it was there that I carried you.” …
Abraham Lincoln once said, “I would be the most foolish person on this footstool earth if I believed for one moment that I could perform the duties assigned to me without the help of one who is wiser than all.” I know that in the days to come and the years ahead there are going to be many times when there will only be one set of footprints in my life. If I did not believe that, I could not face the days ahead.3604
On March 19, 1981, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Our Nation’s motto—“In God We Trust”—was not chosen lightly. It reflects a basic recognition that there is a divine authority in the universe to which this nation owes homage.
Throughout our history, Americans have put their faith in God, and no one can doubt that we have been blessed for it. The earliest settlers of this land came in search of religious freedom. Landing on a desolate shoreline, they established a spiritual foundation that has served us ever since.
It was the hard work of our people, the freedom they enjoyed and their faith in God that built this country and made it the envy of the world. In all of our great cities and towns evidence of the faith of our people is found: Houses of worship of every denomination are among the oldest structures.
While never willing to bow to a tyrant, our forefathers were always willing to get to their knees before God. When catastrophe threatened, they turned to God for deliverance. When the harvest was bountiful, the first thought was thanksgiving to God.
Prayer is today as powerful a force in our nation as it has ever been. We as a nation should never forget this source of strength. And while recognizing that the freedom to choose a Godly path is the essence of liberty, as a nation we cannot but hope that more of our citizens would, through prayer, come into a closer relationship with their Maker.
Recognizing our great heritage, the Congress, by Joint Resolution approved April 17, 1952, has called upon the president to set aside a suitable day each year as a National Day of Prayer.
Now, therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Thursday, May 7, 1981, National Day of Prayer. On that day I ask all who believe to join me in giving thanks to Almighty God for the blessings He has bestowed on this land and the protection He affords us as a people. Let us as a nation join together before God, fully aware of the trials that lie ahead and the need, yes, the necessity, for divine guidance. With unshakable faith in God and the liberty which is heritage, we as a free nation will surely survive and prosper.3605
On March 20, 1981, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner, President Ronald Reagan stated:
This is the task before us: To reassert our commitment as a nation to a law higher than our own, to renew our spiritual strength.3606
On May 17, 1981, at the Commencement Exercise of the University of Notre Dame, President Ronald Reagan stated:
It is time for the world to know our intellectual an spiritual values are rooted in the source of all strength, a belief in a Supreme Being, and a law higher than our own.3607
On May 20, 1981, in a Proclamation of Father’s Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” Solomon tells us. Clearly, the future is in the care of our parents. Such is the responsibility, promise, and hope of fatherhood. Such is the gift that our fathers give us.3608
On September 28, 1981, at the meeting of the International Association of the Chiefs of Police, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Only our deep moral values and our strong social institutions can hold back the jungle and restrain the darker impulses of human nature.3609
On January 19, 1982, in a news conference, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I have been one who believes that abortion is the taking of a human life. …
The fact that they could not resolve the issue of when life begins was a finding in and of itself. If we don’t know, then shouldn’t we morally opt on the side of life? If you came upon an immobile body and you yourself could not determine whether it was dead or alive, I think that you would decide to consider it alive until somebody could prove it was dead. You wouldn’t get a shovel and start covering it up. And I think we should do the same thing with regard to abortion.3610
On February 4, 1982, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Last year, you all helped me begin celebrating the 31st anniversary of my 39th birthday. And I must say that all of those pile up, and increase of numbers, don’t bother me at all, because I recall that Moses was 80 when God commissioned him for public service, and he lived to be 120. And Abraham was 100 and his wife, Sarah, 90 when they did something truly amazing—and he lived to be 175. Just imagine if he had put $2,000 a year into his IRA account. …
I recall talking to one senator who came into my office. We both deeply believed what it was we were espousing, but we were on opposite sides. And when we finished talking, as he rose he said, “I’m going out of here and do some praying.” And I said, “Well, if you get a busy signal, it’s me there ahead of you.” …
Well, God is with us. We need only believe. The psalmist says, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Speaking for Nancy and myself, we thank you for all your prayers on our behalf. And it is true that you can sense and feel that power. …
I’ve always believed that we were, each of us, put here for a reason, that there is a plan, somehow a divine plan for all of us. I know now that whatever days are left to me belong to Him. …
I also believe this blessed land was set apart in a very special way, a country created by men and women who came here not in search of gold, but in search of God. They would be free people, living under the law with faith in their Maker and their future.
Sometimes it seems we’ve strayed from that noble beginning, from our conviction that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to. God, the source of our knowledge, has been expelled from the classroom. He gives us His greatest blessing—life—and yet many would condone the taking of innocent life. We expect Him to protect us in a crisis, but turn away from Him too often to our day-to-day living. I wonder if He isn’t waiting for us to wake up. …
We have God’s promise that what we give will be given back many times over, so let us go forth from here and rekindle the fire of our faith. Let our wisdom be vindicated by our deeds. We are told in II Timothy that when our work is done, we can say, “We have fought the good fight. We have finished the race. We have kept the faith.” … 3611
On February 9, 1982, at the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I’ve always believed that we were put here for a reason, that there is a path somehow, a divine plan for all of us and for each one of us. And I’ve also always believed that America was set apart in a special way, that it was put here between the oceans to be found by a certain kind of people, based on a quality that these people had in that they came from every corner of the world. And a country then was created by men and women who came not for gold but mainly in search of God. They would be free people, living under the law, with faith in their Maker and in their future.
Its been written that the most sublime figure in American history was George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. He personified a people who knew that it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness, that they must seek help from God—their Father and Preserver. Where did we begin to lose sight of that noble beginning, of our convictions that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to? Do we really think that we can have it both ways, that God will protect us in a time of crisis even as we turn away from Him in our day-to-day life? …
Education doesn’t begin with Washington officials or stated officials or local officials. It begins with the family, where it is the right and the responsibility of every parent. And that responsibility, I think, includes teaching children respect for skin color that is different from their own; religious beliefs that are different from their own; religious beliefs that are different from their own. It includes conveying the message to the young as well as to the old that racial discrimination and religious bigotry have no place in the free society. …
The Book of St. John tells us, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” We have God’s promise that what we give will be given back many times over. And we also have His promise that we could take to heart with regard to our country—“That if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.” …
To preserve our blessed land, we must look to God. … Rebuilding America begins with restoring family strength and preserving family values.3612
On February 12, 1982, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Through the storms of Revolution, Civil War, and the great World Wars, as well as during the times of disillusionment and disarray, the nation has turned to God in prayer for deliverance. We thank Him for answering our call, for, surely, He has. As a nation, we have been richly blessed with His love and generosity.3613
On February 26, 1982, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We must with calmness and resolve help the vast majority of our fellow Americans understand that the more than one and one-half million abortions performed in America in 1980 amount to a great moral evil, and assault on the sacredness of human life. …
Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace.3614
On March 8, 1982, at the annual Washington Policy Meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The Lord’s Prayer contains 57 words. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has 266 words. The Ten Commandments are presented in just 297 words, and the Declaration of Independence has only 300 words. And … an Agriculture Department order setting the price of cabbage has 26,911 words.3615
On March 15, 1982, to the Alabama State Legislature, President Ronald Reagan stated:
To those who cite the First Amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and every-day life, may I just say: The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.3616
On March 23, 1982, to the National Conference of Christians and Jews, New York, President Ronald Reagan stated:
A strong, credible America is also an indispensable incentive for a peaceful resolution of differences between Israel and her neighbors. America has never flinched from its commitment to the State of Israel—a commitment which remains unshakable.3617
On April 13, 1982, at a luncheon for National Religious Leaders regarding Private Sector Initiatives, in the White House, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We just celebrated the happiest and holiest holiday of the Christian faith, and we’re in the sixth of the eight days of Passover, a reminder of our nation’s Judeo-Christian tradition. …
For some time now, I’ve been convinced that there is a great hunger on the part of our people for a spiritual revival in this land.3618
On April 26, 1982, to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Ronald Reagan stated:
True wealth comes from the heart, from the treasure of ideas and spirit, from the investments of millions of brave people with hope for the future, trust in their fellow men, and faith in God.3619
On May 1, 1982, at the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, World’s Fair, Tennessee, President Ronald Reagan stated:
No government in the history of civilization has ever voluntarily reduced itself in size. But with God’s help, this one’s going to.3620
On May 6, 1982, in a ceremony at the White House in observance of the National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
All of us are here with a common purpose: to observe a National Day of Prayer, a tradition that was begun by the Continental Congress. …
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 forefathers 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 of 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. …
The French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting America a hundred and fifty years ago, marveled at Americans because they understood that a free people must also be a religious people. “Despotism,” he wrote, “may be able to do without faith, but freedom cannot.”
Today, prayer is still a powerful force in America, and our faith in God is a mighty source of strength. Our Pledge of Allegiance states that we are “one nation under God,” and our currency bears the motto, “In God We Trust.”
The morality and values such faith implies are deeply embedded in our national character. Our country embraces those principles by design, and we abandon them at our peril. Yet in recent years, well-meaning Americans in the name of freedom have taken freedom away.
For the sake of religious tolerance, they’ve forbidden religious practice in the classrooms. The law of this land has effectively removed prayer from our classrooms.
How can we hope to retain our freedom through the generations if we fail to teach our young that our liberty springs from an abiding faith in our Creator?
Thomas Jefferson once said, “Almighty God created the mind free.” But current interpretation of our Constitution holds that the minds of our children cannot be free to pray to God in public schools. No one will ever convince me that a moment of voluntary prayer will harm a child or threaten a school or state. But I think it can strengthen our faith in a Creator who alone has the power to bless America.
One of my favorite passages in the Bible is the promise God gives us in II Chronicles: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and search for me, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.” That promise is the hope of America and of all our people.
Because of my faith in that promise, I’m particularly pleased to be able to tell you today that this administration will soon submit to the United States Congress a proposal to amend our Constitution to allow our children to pray in school. No one must ever be forced or coerced or pressured to take part in any religious exercise, but neither should the government forbid religious practice. The amendment we’ll propose will restore the right to pray.
I thank you all for coming here today and for the good work that you do for our people, our country, and our God every day of the year. …
Let us take up the challenge to reawaken America’s religious and moral heart, recognizing that a deep and abiding faith in God is the rock upon which this great nation was founded.3621
On May 10, 1982, in an Administrative Briefing with Editors from the Midwest, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The First Amendment is to protect not government from religion, but religion from government tyranny. … The polls show that it is overwhelming, the percentage of people who want prayer restored. … We refer to ours as a country under God. It says “In God We Trust” on our coins. They open the Congress sessions with a chaplain. I’ve never been sure whether he prays for the Congress or for the nation.3622
On May 17, 1982, in a proposed Constitutional Amendment of Prayer in Schools, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I have attached for your consideration a proposed constitutional amendment to restore the simple freedom of our citizens to offer prayer in our public schools and institutions. The public expression through prayer of our faith in God is a fundamental part of our American heritage and a privilege which should not be excluded by law from any American school, public or private.
One hundred fifty years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville found that all Americans believed that religious faith was indispensable to the maintenance of their republican institutions. Today, I join with the people of this nation in acknowledging this basic truth, that our liberty springs from and depends upon an abiding faith in God. This has been clear from the time of George Washington, who stated in his Farewell Address: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports … And let us with caution indulge the suppositions that morality can be maintained without religion. … Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Nearly every president since Washington has proclaimed a day of public prayer thanksgiving to acknowledge the many favors of Almighty God. We have acknowledged God’s guidance on our coinage, in our national anthem, and in the Pledge of Allegiance. As the Supreme Court has stated: “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”
The founders of our nation and the framers of the First Amendment did not intend to forbid public prayer. On the contrary, prayer has been part of our public assemblies since Benjamin Franklin’s eloquent request that prayer be observed by the Constitution Convention:
“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men … I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a bye-word down to future ages. … I therefore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business. … "
Just as Benjamin Franklin believed it was beneficial for the Constitutional Convention to begin each day’s work with a prayer, I believe that it would be beneficial for our children to have an opportunity to begin each school day in the same manner. Since the law has been construed to prohibit this, I believe that the law should be changed. It is time for the people, through their Congress and the state legislatures, to act, using the means afforded them by the Constitution.
The amendment I propose will remove the bar to school prayer established by the Supreme Court and allow prayer back in our schools. However, the amendment also expressly affirms the right of anyone to refrain from prayer. The amendment will allow communities to determine for themselves whether prayer should be permitted in their public schools and to allow individuals to decide for themselves whether they wish to participate in prayer.
I am confident that such an amendment will be quickly adopted, for a vast majority of our people believe there is a need for prayer in our public schools and institutions. I look forward to working with Congress to achieve the passage of this amendment.3623
In July of 1982, at the National Right to Life Convention, President Ronald Reagan stated:
It is you who have attempted to protect the helpless and speak for the unborn; you have carried the burden and fought the good fight. For this, God will bless you; and for this, millions of Americans, myself included, thank you.3624
On September 8, 1982, in support of adding Senator Jesse Helms’ anti-abortion amendment to the debt ceiling bill, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The amendment is a responsible statutory approach to one of the most sensitive problems our society faces. … an amendment which:
1. Affirms the humanity of the unborn child in our society.
2. Bans permanently federal funding and support for the taking of the life of an unborn child except to save the life of the mother.
3. Provides opportunity for the Supreme Court to reconsider its usurpation of the role of legislature and state courts in this area.3625
On September 9, 1982, at the Alfred M. Landon Lecture Series on Public Issues, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I know now what I’m about to say will be very controversial, but I also believe that God’s greatest gift is human life and that we have a sacred duty to protect the innocent human life of an unborn child. …
I think the American people are hungry for a spiritual revival. More and more of us are beginning to sense that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living. I wonder if sometimes He isn’t waiting for us to wake up, He isn’t maybe running out of patience.3626
On September 18, 1982, in a Radio Address to the Nation of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
At every crucial turning point in our history Americans have faced and overcome great odds, strengthened by spiritual faith. The Plymouth settlers triumphed over hunger, disease, and a cruel Northern wilderness because, in the words of William Bradford, “They knew they were Pilgrims, so they committed themselves to the will of God and resolved to proceed.”
George Washington knelt in prayer at Valley Forge and in the darkest days of our struggle for independence said that “the fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.”
Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the wisest of our founding fathers, had no doubt about the source from which our cause was derived. “The God who gave us life,” he declared, “gave us liberty.”
And nearly a century later, in the midst of a tragic and at times seemingly hopeless Civil War, Abraham Lincoln vowed that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”
It’s said that prayer can move mountains. Well, it’s certainly moved the hearts and minds of Americans in their times of trial and helped them to achieve a society that, for all its imperfections, is still the envy of the world and the last, best hope of mankind
And just as prayer has helped us as a nation, it helps us as individuals. In nearly all our lives, there are moments when our prayers and the prayers of our friends and loved ones help to see us through and keep [us] on the right path. In fact, prayer is one of the few things in the world that hurts no one and sustains the spirit of millions.
The founding fathers felt this so strongly that they enshrined the principle of freedom of religion in the First Amendment of the Constitution. The purpose of that amendment was to protect religion from the interference of government and to guarantee, in its own words, “the free exercise of religion.”
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 initiative and with their parents’ approval, to begin the school day with a one-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 been objected to prayers being said in 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.
I’m sorry to say that so far the Congress has failed to vote on the issue of school prayer.3627
On September 24, 1982, in meeting the Editors and Publishers of Trade Magazines, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I believe this country is hungry for a spiritual revival. I also believe that what Teddy Roosevelt said once is true—“The presidency is a bully pulpit.” And we’re not going to give up on those social issues that have to do with the morals of this country and the great standards that made this country great.3628
On September 25, 1982, at a candle-lighting ceremony for prayer in schools, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Unfortunately, in the last two decades we’ve experienced an onslaught of such twisted logic that if Alice were visiting America, she might think she’d never left Wonderland.
We’re told that it somehow violates the rights of others to permit students in school who desire to pray to do so. Clearly this infringes on the freedom of those who choose to pray, the freedom taken for granted since the time of our Founding Fathers …
Now, no one is suggesting that others should be forced into any religious activity, but to prevent those who believe in God from expressing their faith is an outrage. And the relentless drive to eliminate God from our schools can and should be stopped. … We can and must not cut ourselves off from this indispensable source of strength and guidance. …
I think it’d be a tragedy for us to deny our children what the rest of us, in and out of government, find so valuable. If the President of the United States can pray with others in the Oval Office—and I have on a number of occasions—then let’s make certain that our children have the same right as they go about preparing for their future and for the future of this country.3629
On Monday, October 4, 1982, as authorized and requested by a Joint Resolution of the 97th Congress of the United States of America, held at the City of Washington, President Ronald Reagan designated 1983 as the national “Year of the Bible.” The Resolution, Public Law 97–280, declared:
WHEREAS the Bible, the Word of God, has made a unique contribution in shaping the United States as a distinctive and blessed nation and people;
WHEREAS deeply held religious convictions springing from the Holy Scriptures led to the early settlement of our Nation;
WHEREAS Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States;
WHEREAS many of our great national leaders—among them Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and Wilson—paid tribute to the surpassing influence of the Bible in our country’s development, as in the words of President Jackson that the Bible is “the Rock on which our Republic rests”;
WHEREAS the history of our Nation clearly illustrates the value of voluntarily applying the teachings of the Scriptures in the lives of individuals, families, and societies;
WHEREAS this Nation now faces great challenges that will test this Nation as it has never been tested before; and
WHEREAS that renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through Holy Scripture can strengthen us as a nation and a people: NOW, THEREFORE, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President is authorized and requested to designate 1983 as a national “Year of the Bible” in recognition of both the formative influence the Bible has been for our Nation, and our national need to study and apply the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.
Thomas P. O’Neill
Speaker of the House
Strom Thurmund
President of the Senate—Pro Tempore
Approved
October 4, 1982
Ronald Reagan3630
In his Proclamation of 1983 as the “Year of the Bible,” President Reagan declared:
Of the many influences that have shaped the United States of America into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.
Deep religious beliefs stemming from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible inspired many of the early settlers of our country, providing them with strength, character, convictions, and faith necessary to withstand great hardship and danger in this new and rugged land. These shared beliefs helped forge a sense of common purpose among the widely dispersed colonies—a sense of community which laid the foundation for the spirit of nationhood that was to develop in later decades.
The Bible and its teaching helped form the basis for the founding fathers’ abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible’s teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned the convictions of those who framed the English system of law inherited by our own nation, as well as the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
For centuries, the Bible’s emphasis on compassion and love for our neighbor has inspired institutional and governmental expressions of benevolent outreach such as private charity, the establishment of schools and hospitals, and the abolition of slavery.
Many of our greatest national leaders—among them Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, and Wilson—have recognized the influence of the Bible on our country’s development. The plainspoken Andrew Jackson referred to the Bible as no less than “the rock on which our Republic rests.” Today our beloved America and, indeed, the world, is facing a decade of enormous challenge. As a people we may well be tested as we have seldom, if ever, been tested before. We will need resources of spirit even more than resources of technology, education, and armaments.
There could be no more fitting moment than now to reflect with gratitude, humility, and urgency upon the wisdom revealed to us in the writing that Abraham Lincoln called, “the best gift God has ever given to man … But for it we could not know right from wrong.”
The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this nation and so many of its citizens, has by Senate Joint Resolution 165 authorized and requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the “Year of the Bible.”
Now, therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, in recognition of the contributions and influence of the Bible on our Republic and our people, do hereby proclaim 1983 the Year of the Bible in the United States. I encourage all citizens, each in his or her own way, to reexamine and rediscover its priceless and timeless message.3631
On November 16, 1982, to the U.S. League of Savings Associations, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Above all, let us remember the mountain of strength that offers the greatest hope and inspiration for all. I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has blessed our land. We need God’s help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can’t expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living. There’s a lovely old hymn which says: “When morning lights the eastern skies, O Lord Thy mercy show. On Thee alone our hope relies, let us Thy kindness know.”3632
In 1983, in an article entitled “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” published in The Human Life Review, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right.
Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.
As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: " … and man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life—the unborn—without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw the tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.
Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to the head of the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”
Over the first two years of my administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion—efforts of congressmen, senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.
Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to—any more than the public voice arose against slavery—until the issue is clearly framed and presented.
What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives—the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
The case against abortion does not rest here, however, for medical practice confirms at every step the correctness of these moral sensibilities. Modern medicine treats the unborn child as a patient. Medical pioneers have made great breakthroughs in treating the unborn—for genetic problems, vitamin deficiencies, irregular heart rhythms, and other medical conditions. Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six time during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?
The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a life has a God-given right to be protected by the law—the same right we have.
What more dramatic confirmation could we have of the real issue than the Baby Doe case in Bloomington, Indiana? The death of that tiny infant tore at the hearts of all Americans because the child was undeniably a live human being—one lying helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The real issue for the courts was not whether Baby Doe was a human being. The real issue was whether to protect the life of a human being who had Down’s Syndrome, who would probably be mentally handicapped, but who needed a routine surgical procedure to unblock his esophagus and allow him to eat. A doctor testified to the presiding judge that, even with his physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a “non-existent” possibility for “a minimally adequate quality of life”—in other words, that retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty. The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.
Federal law does not allow federally-assisted hospitals to decide that Down’s Syndrome infants are not worth treating, much less to decide to starve them to death. Accordingly, I have directed the Department of Justice and Health and Human Services to apply civil rights regulations to protect handicapped newborns. All hospitals receiving federal funds must post notices which will clearly state that failure to feed handicapped babies is prohibited by federal law.
The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion.
The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence.
Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. Some have said that only those individuals with a “consciousness of self” are human beings. One such writer has followed this deadly logic and concluded that “shocking as it may seem, a newly born infant is not a human being.”
A Nobel Prize winning scientist has suggested that if a handicapped child “were not declared fully human until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice.” In other words, “quality control” to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.
Obviously, some influential people want to deny that every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist that a member of the human race must have certain qualities before they accord him or her status as a “human being.”
Events have borne out the editorial in a California medical journal which explained three years before Roe v. Wade that the social acceptance of abortion is a “defiance of the long-held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status.”
Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the “quality of life” ethic.
I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. America was founded by men and women who shares a vision of the value of each and every individual. They stated this vision clearly from the very start in the Declaration of Independence, using words that every schoolboy and schoolgirl can recite:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
We fought a terrible war to guarantee that one category of mankind—black people in America—could not be denied the inalienable rights with which their Creator endowed them. The great champion of the sanctity of all human life in that day, Abraham Lincoln, gave us his assessment of the Declaration’s purpose. Speaking of the framers of that noble document, he said:
“This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on. … They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.”
He warned also of the danger we would face in we ever closed our eyes to the value of life in any category of human beings:
“I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?”
When Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and property to all human beings, he explained that all are “entitled to the protection of American las, because its divine spirit of equality declares that all men are created equal.” He said the rights guaranteed by the amendment would therefore apply to “any human being.” Justice William Brennan, in another case decided only the year before Roe v. Wade, referred to our society as one that “strongly affirms the sanctity of life.”
Another William Brennan—not the Justice—has reminded us of the terrible consequences that can follow when a nation rejects the sanctity of life ethic:
“The cultural environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid of value and respect.
As a nation today, we have not rejected the sanctity of human. The American people have not had an opportunity to express their view on the sanctity of human life in the unborn. I am convinced that Americans do not want to play God with the value of human life. It is not for us to decide who is worthy to live and who is not. Even the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade did not explicitly reject the traditional American idea of intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply dodged this issue.
The Congress has before it several measures that would enable our people to reaffirm the sanctity of human life, even the smallest and the youngest and the most defenseless. The Human Life Bill expressly recognizes the unborn as human beings and accordingly protects them as persons under our Constitution. This bill, first introduced by Senator Jesse Helms, provided the vehicle for the Senate hearings in 1981 which contributed so much to our understanding of the real issue of abortion.
The Respect Human Life Act, just introduced in the ninety-eighth Congress, states in its first section that the policy of the United States is “to protect innocent life, both before and after birth.” This bill, sponsored by Congressman Henry Hyde and Senator Roger Jepsen, prohibits the federal government from performing abortions or assisting those who do so, except to save the life of the mother. It also addresses the pressing issue of infanticide which, as we have seen, flows inevitably from permissive abortion as another step in the denial of the inviolability of innocent human life.
I have endorsed each of these measures, as well as the more difficult route of constitutional amendment, and I will give these initiatives my full support. Each of them, in different ways, attempts to reverse the tragic policy of abortion-on-demand imposed by the Supreme Court ten years ago. Each of them is a decisive way to affirm the sanctity of human life.
We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond to pain. But how many Americans are aware that abortion techniques are allowed today, in all fifty states, that burn the skin of a baby with a salt solution, in a agonizing death that can last for hours?
Another example: two years ago, Philadelphia Inquirer ran a Sunday special supplement on “The Dreaded Complication.” The “dreaded complication” referred to in the article—the complication feared by doctors who perform abortions—is the survival of the child despite all the painful attacks during the abortion procedure. Some unborn children do survive the late-term abortions the Supreme has made legal. Is there any question that these victims of abortion deserve our attention and protection? Is there any question that those who don’t survive were living human beings before they were killed?
Late-term abortions, especially when the baby survives, but is then killed by starvation, neglect, or suffocation, show once again the link between abortion and infanticide. The time to stop both is now. As my administration acts to stop infanticide, we will be fully aware of the real issue that underlies the death of babies before and soon after birth.
Our society has, fortunately, become sensitive to the rights and special needs of the handicapped, but I am shocked that physical or mental handicaps of newborns are still used to justify their extinction. This administration has a Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who has done perhaps more than any other American for handicapped children, by pioneering surgical techniques to help them, by speaking out on the value of their lives, and by working with them in the context of loving families. You will not find his former patients advocating the so-called “quality-of-life” ethic.
I know that when the true issue of infanticide is placed before the American people, with all the facts openly aired, we will have no trouble deciding that a mentally or physically handicapped baby has the same intrinsic worth and right to life as the rest of us. As the New Jersey Supreme Court said two decades ago, in a decision upholding the sanctity of human life, “a child need not be perfect to have a worthwhile life.”
Whether we are talking about pain suffered by unborn children, or about late-term abortions, or about infanticide, we inevitably focus on the humanity of the unborn child. Each of these issues is a potential rallying point for the sanctity of life ethic. Once we as a nation rally around any one of these issues to affirm the sanctity of life, we will see the importance of affirming this principle across the board.
Malcolm Muggeridge, the English writer, goes right to the heart of the matter: “Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.” The sanctity of innocent human life is a principle that Congress should proclaim at every opportunity.
It is impossible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We need only recall that in Brown v. Board of Education the court reversed its own earlier “separate-but-equal” decision. I believe if the Supreme Court took another look at Roe v. Wade, and considered the real issue between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic, it would change its mind once again.
As we continue to work to overturn Roe v. Wade, we must also continue to lay the groundwork for a society in which abortion is not the accepted answer to unwanted pregnancy. Pro-life people have already taken heroic steps, often at great personal sacrifice, to provide for unwed mothers. I recently spoke about a young pregnant woman named Victoria, who said, “In this society we save whales, we save timberwolves and bald eagles and Coke bottles. Yet, everyone wanted me to throw away my baby.” She has been by Sav-a-Life, a group in Dallas, which provides a way for unwed mothers to preserve the human life within them when they might otherwise be tempted to resort to abortion. I think also of House of His Creation in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, where a loving couple has taken in almost two hundred young women in the past ten years. They have seen, as a fact of life, that the girls are not better off having abortions than saving their babies. I am also reminded of the remarkable Rossow family of Ellington, Connecticut, who have opened their hearts and their homes to nine handicapped adopted and foster children.
The Adolescent Family Life Program, adopted by Congress at the request of Senator Jeremiah Denton, has opened new opportunities for unwed mothers to give their children life. We should not rest until our entire society echoes the tone of John Powell in the dedication of his book, Abortion: The Silent Holocaust, a dedication to every woman carrying an unwanted child: “Please believe that you are not alone. There are many of us that truly love you, who want to stand at your side, and help in any way we can.” And we can echo the always-practical woman of faith, Mother Teresa, when she says, “If you don’t want the little child, that unborn child, give him to me.” We have so many families in America seeking to adopt children that the slogan “every child a wanted child” is now the emptiest of all reasons to tolerate abortion.
I have often said we need to join in prayer to bring protection to the unborn. Prayer and action are needed to uphold the sanctity of human life. I believe it will not be possible to accomplish our work of saving lives, “without being a soul of prayer.” The famous British member of Parliament William Wilberforce prayed with his small group of influential friends, the “Clapham Sect,” for decades to see an end to slavery in the British empire. Wilberforce led that struggle in Parliament, unflaggingly, because he believed in the sanctity of human life. He saw the fulfillment of his impossible dream when Parliament outlawed slavery just before his death.
Let his faith and perseverance be our guide. We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value in the life of others, a value of which Malcolm Muggeridge says: " … however low it flickers or fiercely burns, it is still a Divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives ever so humane and enlightened."
Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide.
My administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.3633
On January 21, 1983, from the White House, Washington, D.C., President Ronald Reagan stated:
Nancy and I are very pleased to extend our warmest greetings and best wishes to all those gathered from across the land for this historic “March for Life.” This nation was founded by men and women who shared a strong moral vision of the great value of each and every individual. America has come to symbolize that belief for the rest of the world.
But the tragic United States Supreme Court decision which legalized “abortion on demand” in 1973 severely tests our moral commitments. You are assembled here to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision and to march and pray for its reversal. We join with you in that hope and plea. The abortion decision was a tragedy, and we have the responsibility to do all we can to protect the unborn children.3634
On January 22, 1983, in a Radio Address to the Nation, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I, too, have always believed that God’s greatest gift is human life and that we have a duty to protect the life of an unborn child.3635
On Thursday, January 27, 1983, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Prayer is the mainspring of the American spirit, a fundamental tenet of our people since before the Republic was founded. A year before the Declaration of Independence, in 1775, the Continental Congress proclaimed the first National Day of Prayer as the initial positive action they asked of every colonist.
Two hundred years ago in 1783, the Treaty of Paris officially ended the long, weary Revolutionary War during which a National Day of Prayer had been proclaimed every spring for eight years. When peace came, the National Day of Prayer was forgotten. For almost half a century, as the nation grew in power and wealth, we put aside this deepest expression of American belief—our national dependence on the providence of God.
It took the tragedy of the Civil War to restore a National Day of Prayer. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
Revived as an annual observance by Congress in 1952, the National Day of Prayer has become a great unifying force for our citizens who come from all the great religions of the world. Prayer unites people. This common expression of reverence heals and brings us together as a nation, and we pray it may one day bring renewed respect for God to all peoples of the world.
From General Washington’s struggle at Valley Forge to the present, this nation has fervently sought and received divine guidance as it pursued the course of history. This occasion provides our nation with an opportunity to further recognize the source of our blessings, and to seek His help for the challenges we face today and in the future.3636
On January 31, 1983, at the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Let us come together, Christians and Jews, let us pray together, march, lobby, and mobilize every force we have, so that we can end the tragic taking of unborn children’s lives. Who among us can imagine the excruciating pain the unborn must feel as their lives are snuffed away? …
I read in the Washington Post about a young woman named Victoria. She’s with child, and she said, “In this society we save whales, we save timber wolves and bald eagles and Coke bottles. Yet everyone wanted me to throw away my baby.” Well, Victoria’s story has a happy ending. Her baby will be born. Victoria has received assistance from a Christian couple, and from Sav-A-Life, a new Dallas group run by Jim McKee. … They’re living the meaning of the two great commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” and “Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself.”
When American reach out for values of faith, family, and caring for the needy, they’re saying, “We want the Word of God. We want to face the future with the Bible.”
We’re blessed to have its words of strength, comfort, and truth. I’m accused of being simplistic at times with some of the problems that confront us. But I’ve often wondered: Within the covers of that single Book are all the answers to all the problems that face us today, if we’d only look there. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.” It’s my firm belief that the enduring values, as I say, presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation. The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, refresh our souls.
Now, I realize it’s fashionable in some circles to believe that no one in government should … encourage others to read the Bible. … We’re told that will violate the constitutional separation of church and state established by the founding fathers in the First Amendment.
Well, it might interest those critics to know that none other than the father of our country, George Washington, kissed the Bible at his inauguration. And he also said words to the effect that there could be no real morality in a society without religion.
John Adams called it “the best book in the world.” and Ben Franklin said, " … the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men … without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial, local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach, a bye-word down to future ages.” …
All of us, as Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, have a special responsibility to remember our fellow believers who are being persecuted in other lands. We’re all children of Abraham. We’re children of the same God. …
This year, for the first time in history, the Voice of America broadcast a religious service worldwide—Christmas Eve at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.
Now, these broadcasts are not popular with government of totalitarian power. But make not mistake, we have a duty to broadcast. Aleksandr Herzen, the Russian writer, warned, “To shrink from saying a word in defense of the oppressed is as bad as any crime.” Well, I pledge to you that America will stand us, speak out, and defend the values we share. To those who would crush religious freedom, our message is plain: You may jail your believers. You may close their churches, confiscate their Bibles, and harass their rabbis and priests, but you will never destroy the love of God and freedom that burns in their hearts. They will triumph over you.
Malcolm Muggeridge, the brilliant English commentator, has written, “The most important happening in the world today is the resurgence of Christianity in the Soviet Union, demonstrating that the whole effort sustained over sixty years to brainwash the Russian people into accepting materialism has been a fiasco.”
Think of it: the most awesome military machine in history, but it is not match for that one single man, hero, strong yet tender, Prince of Peace. His name alone, Jesus, can lift our hearts, soothe our sorrows, heal our wounds, and drive away our fears. …
With His message and with your conviction and commitment, we can still move mountains.
Before I say goodbye, I wanted to leave with you these words from an old Netherlands folk song, because they made me think of our meeting here today:
“We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender wilt be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation:
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!”
To which I would only add a line from another song:
“America, America, God shed His grace on thee.”3637
On February 2, 1983, in meeting with Jewish leaders, President Ronald Reagan stated:
America knows God’s blessings. Our cup truly runneth over. We seek only to share the blessings of liberty, peace, and prosperity.3638
On February 3, 1983, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I’m so thankful that there will always be one day in the year when people all over our land can sit down as neighbors and friends and remind ourselves of what our real task is. This task was spelled out in the Old and New Testament. Jesus was asked, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” And he replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Can we resolve to reach, learn, and try to heed the greatest message ever written—God’s Word and the Holy Bible? Inside its pages lie all the answers to all the problems that man has ever known.
Now, I am assuming a new position; but I should warn our friends in the loyal opposition, this new job won’t require me to leave the White House. With the greatest enthusiasm, I have agreed to serve as the honorary chairman for the Year of the Bible.
We think how many people in the world are imprisoned or tortured—harassed for even possessing a Bible or trying to read one. … In its lessons and the great wealth of its words, we find comfort, strength, wisdom, and hope. … We might remember something Abraham Lincoln said over a hundred years ago: “We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own … we have become to proud to pray to the God that made us.”
We face great challenges in this country, but we’ve faced great challenges before and conquered them. What carried us through was a willingness to seek power and protection from One much greater than ourselves, to turn back to Him and to trust in His mercy. Without His help, America will not go forward.
I have a very special old Bible. And alongside a verse in the Second Book of Chronicles there are some words, handwritten, very faded by now. And believe me, the person who wrote these words was an authority. Her name was Nelle Wilson Reagan. She was my mother. And she wrote about that verse, “A most wonderful verse for the healing of nations.”
Now, the verse that she’d marked read: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven … and will heal their land.”
I know at times all of us—I do—feel that perhaps in our prayers we ask for too much. And then there other times when we feel that something isn’t important enough to bother God with it. Maybe we should let Him decide those things.
The war correspondent Marguerite Higgins, who received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting because of her coverage of the Korean War, among her writings had an account of the Fifth Company of Marines who were part of an 18,000–man force that was in combat with a hundred thousand of the enemy. And she described an incident that took place early, just after dawn on a very cold morning. It was forty-two degrees below zero. And the weary marines, half frozen, stood by their dirty, mud-covered trucks, eating their breakfast from tin cans.
One huge marine was eating cold beans with a trench knife. His clothes were frozen stiff as a board; his face was covered with a heavy beard and crusted with mud. And one of the little group of war correspondents who were on hand went up to him and said, “If I were God and could grant you anything you wished, what would you most like?” And the marine stood there for a moment, looking down at that cold tin of beans, and then he raised his head and said, “Give me tomorrow.”3639
On February 18, 1983, while speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, President Reagan expressed:
Our Founding Fathers prohibited a Federal establishment of religion, but there is no evidence that they intended to set up a wall of separation between the state and religious belief itself.
The evidence of this is all around us. In the Declaration of Independence, alone, there are no fewer than four mentions of a Supreme Being. “In God We Trust” is engraved on our coinage. The Supreme Court opens its proceedings with a religious invocation. And the Congress opens each day with prayer from its chaplains.
The schoolchildren of the United States are entitled to the same priviledges as Supreme Court Justices and Congressmen.
Join with me in persuading the Congress to accede to the overwhelming desire of American people for a constitutional amendment permitting prayer in our schools.3640
On March 8, 1983, at the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, President Reagan stated:
There are a great many God-fearing, dedicated, noble men and women in public life. … And, yes, your help [is needed] to keep us ever mindful of the ideas and the principles that brought us into the public arena in the first place. The basis of those ideals and principles is a commitment to freedom and personal liberty that itself is grounded in the much deeper realization that freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought and humbly accepted. …
I want you to know that this administration in motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities—the institutions that foster and nourish values [such as] concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God. …
Drugs and devices are prescribed without getting parental consent or giving notification after they’ve done so. Girls termed “sexually active”—and that has replaced the word “promiscuous”—are given this help in order to prevent illegitimate birth or abortion. Well, we have ordered clinics receiving federal funds to notify the parents such help has been given. One of the nation’s leading newspapers has created the term “squeal rule” in editorializing against us for doing this, and we’re being criticized for violating the privacy of young people. A judge recently granted an injunction against an enforcement of our rule. I’ve watched TV panel shows discuss this issue, seen columnists’ pontification on our error, but no one seems to mention morality as playing a part in the subject of sex.
Is the Judeo-Christian tradition wrong? Are we to believe that something so sacred can be looked upon as a pure physical thing with no potential for emotional and psychological harm? And isn’t it the parents’ right to give counsel and advice to keep their children from making mistakes that may affect their entire lives?
Many of us in government would like to know what parents think about this intrusion into their families by government. We’re going to fight in the courts. The right of parents and the rights of family take precedence over those of Washington-based bureaucrats and social engineers.
But the fight against parental notification is really only one example of many attempts to water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy.
There’s a great spiritual awakening in America, a renewal of the traditional values that have been the bedrock of America’s goodness and greatness.
One recent survey by a Washington-based research council concluded that Americans were far more religious than the people of other nations. Ninety-five percent of those surveyed expressed a belief in God. A huge majority believed the Ten Commandments had real meaning in their lives. Another study has found that an overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of adultery, teenage sex, pornography, abortion, and hard drugs. And this same study showed A deep reverence for the importance of family ties and religious belief.
There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. …
The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.
Whittaker Chambers … wrote the crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God. …
The source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man.
For in the words of Isaiah: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increases strength. … But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.” …
Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. When our founding fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.
The evidence of this permeates our history and our government. The Declaration of Independence mentions the Supreme Being no less than four times. “In God We Trust” is engraved on our coinage. The Supreme Court opens its proceedings with a religious invocation. And members of Congress open their sessions with a prayer. I just happen to believe that the school children of the United States are entitled to the same privileges as Supreme Court Justices and Congressmen.3641
On March 8, 1983, in a message to Congress regarding the proposed Constitutional Amendment on Prayer in Schools, President Ronald Reagan stated:
One hundred and fifty years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville found that all Americans believed that religious faith was indispensable to the maintenance of their republican institutions. Today, I join with the people of this Nation in acknowledging this basic truth, that our liberty springs from and depends upon an abiding faith in God.3642
On April 2, 1983, in a Radio Address to the Nation, President Ronald Reagan stated:
This week Jewish families and friends have been celebrating Passover, a tradition rich in symbolism and meaning. Its observance reminds all of us that the struggle for freedom and the battle against oppression waged by the Jews since ancient times is one shared by people everywhere. And Christians have been commemorating the last momentous days leading to the crucifixion of Jesus 1,950 years ago. Tomorrow, as morning spreads around the planet, we’ll celebrate the triumph of life over death, the resurrection of Jesus. Both observances tell of sacrifice and pain but also of hope and triumph. …
Men and women around the world who love God and freedom—bear a message of world hope and brotherhood like the rites of Passover and Easter that we celebrate this weekend. …
We want peace. … We want no wars. … We want to travel without fear. … And then they ask, “Do you think that we can have these things one day?” Well, I do. I really do. Nearly 2,000 years after the coming of the Prince of Peace, such simple wishes may still seem far from fulfillment. But we can achieve them. We must never stop trying.3643
On April 6, 1983, in a Proclamation for Mother’s Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:
To our mothers, we owe our highest esteem, for it is from their gift of life that the flow of events begins that shapes our destiny. A mother’s love, nurturing, and beliefs are among the strongest influences molding the development and character of our youngsters. As Henry Ward Beecher wrote, “What a mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.”3644
On April 23, 1983, in a Radio Address to the Nation on the Death of Federal Diplomatic and Military Personnel in Beirut, Lebanon, President Ronald Reagan stated:
“Greater love hath no man.” The courage and dedication of these men and women reflect the best tradition of our Foreign Service, our Armed Forces, and the other departments. … 3645
On May 6, 1983, at the annual banquet of the National Rifle Association, Phoenix, Arizona, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Standing up for America also means standing up for the God who has blessed this land. If we could just keep remembering that Moses brought down from the mountain the Ten Commandments, not ten suggestions—and if those of us who live for the Lord could remember that He wants us to love our Lord and our neighbor, then there’s no limit to the problems we could solve or the mountains we could together as a mighty force for good.3646
On May 7, 1983, in a Radio address to the Nation, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We also first learn at home, and, again, often from our mothers, about the God who will guide us through life. …
The progress we’re making with the economy, just like the national renewal we’re seeing spring up all around us, is the product of our reliance again on good old-fashioned common sense, renewed belief in ourselves, and faith in God.
Now and then I find guidance and direction in the worn brown Bible I used to take the oath of office. It’s been the Reagan family Bible, and, like many of yours, has its flyleaf filled with important events; its margins are scrawled with insights and passages underlined for emphasis. My mother, Nelle, made all those marks in that book. She used it to instruct her two young sons, and I look to it still.
A passage in Proverbs describes the ideal woman, saying: “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. Give her the product of her hands, and let her work praise her in the gates.”3647
On May 20, 1983, at the Cuban Independence Day Celebration, Miami, Florida, President Ronald Reagan stated:
This is a story of a commissar who visited one of their collective farms, and he stopped the first farmer that he met, and he asked about life on the farm. And the man said, “It’s wonderful. I’ve never heard anyone complain about anything since I’ve been here.” And the commissar then said, “Well, what about the crops?” “Oh,” he said, “the crops are wonderful.” “What about the potatoes?” “Oh, sir,” he said, “the potatoes, there are so many that if we put them in one pile they would touch the foot of God.” And the commissar said, “Just a minute. In the Soviet Union there is no God.” And the farmer said, “Well, there are no potatoes either.”3648
On June 16, 1983, at a dinner honoring Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We’re a nation under God, a living and loving God. But Thomas Jefferson warned us, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” We cannot expect Him to protect us in crisis if we turn away from Him in our everyday living.
But you know, He told us what to do in II Chronicles. Let us reach out to Him. He said, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”3649
On June 22, 1983, at the National Conference of the National Federation of Independence, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The principles of wealth creation transcend time, people, and place. Governments which deliberately subvert them by denouncing God, smothering faith, destroying freedom, and confiscating wealth have impoverished their people.
Communism works only in heaven, where they don’t need it, and in hell, where they’ve already got it.3650
On July 19, 1983, at the annual observance of Captives Nations Week, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Two visions of the world remain locked in dispute. The first believes all men are created equal by a loving God who has blessed us with freedom. Abraham Lincoln spoke for us: “No man,” he said, “is good enough to govern another without the other’s consent.”
The second vision believes that religion is opium for the masses. It believes that eternal principles like truth, liberty, and democracy have no meaning beyond the whim of the state. And Lenin spoke for them: “It is true, that liberty is precious,” he said, “so precious that must be rationed.”
We’ll take Lincoln’s version over Lenin’s—and so will citizens of the world if they’re given free choice. …
You are the conscience of the free world, and I appeal to you to make your voices heard. Tell [totalitarian governments]: “You may jail your people. You may seize their goods. You may ban their unions. You may bully their rabbis and dissidents. You may forbid the name of Jesus to pass through their lips. But you will never destroy the love of God and freedom that burns in their hearts. They will triumph over you. …
The Prophet Isaiah admonished the world, “Bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives.” Some twenty-five centuries later, philosophers would declare that “the cause of freedom is the cause of God.”3651
On July 28, 1983, at a White House reception for the National Council of Negro Women, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I’ve lived a long time, but I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t believe that prejudice and bigotry were the worst of sins. My mother was the kindest person I’ve ever known and truly believed that we are all brothers and sisters—children of God.3652
On August 1, 1983, at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association, Atlanta, Georgia, President Ronald Reagan stated:
It’s not good enough to have equal access to our law; we must also have equal access to the higher law—the law of God. George Washington warned that morality could not prevail in exclusion of religious principles. And Jefferson asked, “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we’ve removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gifts of God?”
We must preserve the noble promise of the American dream for every man, woman, and child in this land. And make no mistake, we can preserve it, and we will. That promise was not created by America. It was given to America as a gift from a loving God—a gift proudly recognized by the language of liberty in the world’s greatest charters of freedom: our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. …
The explicit promise in the Declaration that we’re endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights was meant for all of us. It wasn’t meant to be limited or perverted by special privilege or by double standards. …
Trusting in God and helping one another, we can and will preserve the dream of America, the last best hope of man on earth.3653
On September 26, 1983, upon signing the Challenge Grant Amendments, President Ronald Reagan stated:
A fellow fell off a cliff, and as he was falling grabbed a limb sticking out the side of the cliff and looked down 300 feet to the canyon floor below and then looked up and said, “Lord, if there’s anyone up there, give me faith. Tell me what to do.” And a voice from the heavens said, “If you have faith, let go.” He looked down at the canyon and then took another look up and said, “Is there anyone else up there?”3654
On October 13, 1983, in a question and answer session with women leaders of Christian religious organizations, President Ronald Reagan:
Many groups come to visit, but I believe yours is the first leadership group of Christian women to be welcomed to the White House in a long, long time, and I’m glad to be the one that’s doing the greeting. I won’t speculate why this hasn’t been done before. I only know that as long as I’m president, your group and others who stand up for our Judeo-Christian values will be welcomed here, because you belong here. …
No greater truth shines through than the one you live by every day: that preserving America must begin with faith in the God who has blessed our land. And we don’t have the answers; He does. Isaiah reminded us that “the Lord opens His gates and keeps in peace the nation that trusts in Him.”
I hope you won’t mind my saying I think I know you all very well. Nelle Reagan, my mother, God rest her soul, had an unshakable faith in God’s goodness. And while I may not have realized it in my youth, I know now that she planted that faith very deeply in me. She made the most difficult Christian message seem very easy. And, like you, she knew you could never repay one bad deed with another. Her way was forgiveness and goodness, and both began with love. …
Well, thanks to Nelle Reagan, I believe in intercessory prayer. And I know that those prayers are giving me strength that I otherwise would not possess. …
The Founding Fathers believed that faith in God was the key to our being a good people and America’s becoming a great nation. George Washington kissed the Bible at his inauguration. And to those who would have government separate from religion, he had these words: “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.”
And Benjamin Franklin, at the time when they were struggling with what was to be the American Constitution, finally one day said to those who were working with him that, “Without God’s help, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.” And if we ever forget that, we’re lost …
I pray that we won’t lose that idea, and that’s why I was motivated to proclaim or designate 1983 the Year of the Bible. …
And I hope we will also recognize the true meaning of the first amendment. Its words were meant to guarantee freedom of religion to everyone. But I believe the First amendment has been twisted to the point that freedom of religion is in danger of becoming freedom from religion. …
Finally, let me just say a few words about another part of freedom that is under siege: the sanctity of human life. Either the law protects human beings, or it doesn’t. … Will she be denied her chance for love and life because someone decides she’s too weak to warrant our help, or because someone has taken it upon himself or herself to decide the quality of her life doesn’t justify keeping her alive? Is that not God’s decision to make? And isn’t it our duty to serve even the least of these, for in so doing we serve Him?3655
In 1983, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Thanksgiving, President Ronald Reagan stated:
In his remarks at Gettysburg, President Lincoln referred to ours as a “nation under God.” We rejoiced in the fact that, while we have maintained separate institutions of church and state over 200 years of freedom, we have at the same time preserved reverence for spiritual beliefs.3656
On December 9, 1983, in recognizing Bill of Rights Day, and Human Rights Day and Week, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Saint John told us, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Well, in many countries people aren’t even allowed to read the Bible. It is up to us to make sure the message of hope and salvation gets through.
You know—I should have brought it with me, although maybe some of you have seen it—but I have a little book, about that big, and about that thick, that contains a verse or two, printed in small type … from the Bible. Its was smuggled out of Russia and was finally delivered to me as an example of what they do just to try and cling to their faith and belief, that when someone has a Bible, they then take just a verse so that everyone can have at least some words—a few words of Scripture—something that can be easily hidden. And that, when we think our own freedom, makes it very evident.3657
On December 14, 1983, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
In 1787, a then elderly Benjamin Franklin said to George Washington as he presided over the Constitutional Convention, “I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
With these words, Mr. Franklin called upon the Convention to open each day with prayer, and from the birth of our Republic, prayer has been vital to the whole fabric of American life.
As we crossed and settled a continent, built a nation in freedom, and endured war and critical struggles to become the leader of the free world and sentinel of liberty, we repeatedly turned to our Maker for strength and guidance in achieving the awesome tasks before us.
From the poignancy of General Washington’s legendary prayer in the snow at Valley Forge to the dangerous times in which we live today, our leaders and the people of this nation have called upon Divine Providence and trusted in God’s wisdom to guide us through the challenges we have faced as a people and a nation.
Whether at the landing of our forbearers in New England and Virginia, the ordeal of the Revolutionary War, the stormy days of binding the thirteen colonies into one country, the Civil War, or other moments of trial over the years, we have turned to God for His help. As we are told in II Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, will humble themselves and pray, and search for me, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”
By Joint Resolution of the Congress approved April 17, 1952, the recognition of a particular day set aside each year as a National Day of Prayer has become part of our unification as a great nation. This is a day on which the people of the United States are invited to turn to God in prayer and meditation in places of worship, in groups, and as individuals. Since 1952, each President has proclaimed annually a Nationally Day of Prayer, resuming the tradition started by the Continental Congress.
Now, therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Thursday, May 3, 1984, as National Day of Prayer. I call upon the citizens of this great nation to gather together on that day in homes and places of worship to pray, each after his or her own manner, for unity of hearts of all mankind.3658
On December 24, 1983, in a Radio Address to the Nation, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The image of George Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow is one of the most famous in American history. He personified a people who knew it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness; they must also seek help from God, their Father and Preserver. …
Some celebrate Christmas as the birthday of a great teacher and philosopher. But to other millions of us, Jesus is much more. He is divine, living assurance that God so loved the world He gave us His only begotten Son so that by believing in Him and learning to love each other we could one day be together in paradise.3659
On January 13, 1984, in celebrating the National Sanctity of Human Life Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The values and freedoms we cherish as Americans rests on our fundamental commitment to the sanctity of human life. The first of the “unalienable rights” affirmed by our Declaration of Independence is the right to life itself, a right [that] the Declaration states has been endowed by our Creator on all human beings—whether young or old, weak or strong, healthy or handicapped.
Since 1973, however, more than 15 million unborn children have died in legalized abortions—a tragedy of stunning dimensions that stands in sad contrast to our belief that each life is sacred. … Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights, and we are infinitely poorer for their loss.3660
On January 25, 1984, in his State of the Union Address, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Each day your members observe a 200–year-old tradition meant to signify America is one nation under God. I must ask: If you can begin your day with a member of the clergy standing right here leading you in prayer, then why can’t freedom to acknowledge God be enjoyed again by children in every school room across this land?
America was founded by people who believed that God was their rock of safety. I recognize we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it’s all right to keep asking if we’re on His side. …
Carl Sandburg said, “I see America not in the setting sun of a black night of despair. … I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God.”3661
On January 26, 1984, in a Salute to Free Enterprise, President Ronald Reagan stated:
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 a people from every corner of the earth who have 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.
We can make America stronger not just economically and militarily, but also morally and spiritually. We can make our beloved country the source of all the dreams and opportunities she was placed on this good earth to provide. We need only to believe in each other and in the God who has so blessed our land.3662
On January 30, 1984, in speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, President Ronald Reagan stated:
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. …
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 in on our side. I think the real question we must answer is, are we on His side? …
This nation fought a terrible war so that black Americans would be guaranteed their God-given rights. Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free or slaves. Well today another question begs to be asked: How can we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live and should be done away with?
I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings. Without that right, no other rights have meaning. “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of God. …
I was pleased last year to proclaim 1983 the Year of the Bible. But, you know, a group called the ACLU severely criticized me for doing that. Well, I wear their indictment like a badge of honor. I believe I stand in pretty good company.
Abraham Lincoln called the Bible “the best gift God has given to man. But for it,” he said, “we could not know right from wrong.” Like that image of George Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow at Valley Forge, Lincoln described a people who knew it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness; they must also look to God their Father and Preserver. And their faith to walk with Him and trust in His Word brought them the blessings of comfort, power, and peace that they sought.
The torch of their faith has been passed from generation to generation. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever.”
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 twenty-five states and 500 cities issued their own Year of the Bible proclamations. One school-teacher, 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. …
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.
We hear of cases where courts say it is dangerous to allow students to meet in Bible study or prayer clubs. And then there was the case of that kindergarten class that was reciting a verse. They said “We thank you for the flowers so sweet. We thank you for the food we eat. We thank you for the birds that sing. We thank you, God, for everything.” A court of appeals ordered them to stop. They were supposedly violating the Constitution of the United States.
Well, Teddy Roosevelt told us, “The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled, it burns like a consuming flame.”
I think Americans are getting angry. I think they have a message, and Congress better listen. We are a government of, by, and for the people. And people want a constitutional amendment making in unequivocally clear our children can hold voluntary prayer in every school across this land. If we could get God and discipline back in our schools, maybe we could get drugs and violence out. …
I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent—we can take our Fifth Amendment. …
Restoring the right to life and protecting people from violence and exploitation are important responsibilities. But as members of God’s family we share another, and that is helping to build a foundation of faith and knowledge to prepare our children for the challenges of life. “Train up a child in the way he should go,” Solomon wrote, “and when he is old he will not depart from it.”3663
In January of 1984, at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, President Ronald Reagan stated:
If the Lord is our light, our strength, and our salvation, whom shall we fear? Of whom shall we be afraid? No matter where we live, we have a promise that can make all the difference, a promise from Jesus to soothe our sorrows, heal our hearts, and drive away our fears. He promised there will never be a dark night, but joy cometh in the morning. He promised if our hearts are true, His love will be as sure as sunlight. And by dying for us, Jesus showed how far our love should be ready to go: all the way. …
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Helping each other, believing in Him, we need never be afraid. We will be part of something far more powerful, enduring, and good than all the forces here on earth. We will be part of paradise.3664
On February 2, 1984, a National Prayer Breakfast, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We all in this room, I know, and we know many millions more everywhere, turn to God in prayer, believe in the power and the spirit of prayer. And yet, so often, we direct our prayers to those problems that are immediate to us, knowing that He has promised His help to us when we turn to Him. And yet, in a world today that is so torn with strife where the divisions seem to be increasing … I wonder if we have ever thought about the greatest tool that we have. The power of prayer and God’s help.
If you could add together the power of prayer of the people just in this room, what would be its megatonnage? And have we maybe been neglecting … the broader [sense] toward someone in perhaps a legitimate dispute, and at the same time recognize that while the dispute will go on, we have to realize that the other individual is a child of God even are we are. …
This power of prayer can be illustrated by the story that goes back to the fourth century—the monk living in a little remote village, spending most of his time in prayer or tending the garden from which he obtained his sustenance. … One day he thought he heard the voice of God telling him to go to Rome. And believing that he had heard, he set out. Weeks and weeks later, he arrived there, having traveled most of the way on foot. It was at a time of a festival in Rome. They were celebrating over the Goths. He followed a crowd into the Colosseum, and then, there in the midst of this great crowd, he saw the gladiators come forth, stand before the Emperor, and say, “We who are about to die salute you.” And he realized they were going to fight to the death for the entertainment of the crowds. He cried out, “In the Name of Christ, stop!” And his voice was lost in the tumult there in the great Colosseum.
And as the games began, he made his way down through the crowd and climbed over the wall and dropped to the floor of the arena. Suddenly the crowds saw this scrawny little figure making his way out to the gladiators and saying, over and over again, “In the Name of Christ, stop!” And they thought it was part of the entertainment, and at first they were amused. But then, when they realized it wasn’t, they grew belligerent and angry. And as he was pleading with the gladiators, “In the Name of Christ, stop!” one of them plunged his sword into his body. And as he fell to the sand of the arena in death, his last words were, “In the Name of Christ, stop!”
And suddenly, a strange thing happened. The gladiators stood looking at this tiny form lying in the sand. A silence fell over the Colosseum. And then, someplace up in the upper tiers, an individual made his way to an exit and left, and the others began to follow. And in the dead silence, everyone left the Colosseum. That was the last battle to the death between gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. Never again did anyone kill or did men kill each other for the entertainment of the crowd.
One tiny voice that could hardly be heard above the tumult. “In the Name of Christ, stop!” It is something we could be saying to each other throughout the world today.
Now, several days ago, while I was very concerned about what I was going to say here today. … I received through diplomatic channels a message from far out across the Pacific. Sometime ago, our ambassador presented to General Romulo of the Philippines the American Medal of Freedom. Not only had he been a great friend of the United States in our time of war, but then he had spent seventeen years as an ambassador here in Washington, from his country to ours. And for whatever reason, he sent this message of thanks to me for the medal that had been given, and then included the farewell statement that he had made when he left Washington, left this country, after those seventeen years.
And I had to confess, I had never been aware that there had been such a farewell message, and I’m quite sure that many of you hadn’t. And so, I’m going to share it with you. I think it fits what we’re talking about today. He said, “I am going home, America. For seventeen years, I have enjoyed your hospitality, visited every one of your fifty States. I can say I know you well. I admire and love America. It is my second home. What I have to say now in parting is both tribute and warning.
“Never forget, Americans, that yours is a spiritual country. Yes, I know you’re a practical people. Like others, I’ve marveled at your factories, your skyscrapers, and your arsenals. But underlying everything else is the fact that America began as a God-loving, God-fearing, God-worshiping people, knowing that there is a spark of the divine in each one of us. It is this respect for the dignity of the human spirit which keeps America invincible.
“May you always endure and, as I say again in parting, thank you, America, and farewell. May God keep you always, and may you always keep God.”3665
On February 6, 1984, in an address at Eureka College, President Ronald Reagan stated:
In Chambers’ autobiography, Witness, he added a sequel. Chambers marked the beginning of his personal journey away from communism on the day that he was suddenly struck by the sight of his infant daughter’s ear as she sat there having breakfast. And then, he said, he realized that such intricacy, such precision could be no accident, no freak of nature. He said that while he didn’t know it at the time, in that moment, God—the finger of God—had touched his forehead.3666
On February 7, 1984, at the meeting of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The God who blessed us with life, gave us knowledge, and made us a good and caring people should never have been expelled from America’s schools.
As we struggle to teach our children the fundamental values we hold so dear, we dare not forget that our civilization was built by men and women who placed their faith in a loving God. If Congress can begin each day with a moment of prayer and meditation, so then can our sons and daughters.3667
On February 12, 1984, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
National prayer is deeply rooted in our American heritage. From the earliest days of our Republic, Americans have asked God to hear their prayers in times of sorrow and crisis and in times of bounty.
The first National Day of Prayer was proclaimed n 1775 by the Second Continental Congress. As thousands gathered in prayer in places of worship and encampments throughout the new land, the dispersed colonists found a new spirit of unity and resolve in this remarkable expression of public faith. For the first time, Americans of every religious persuasion prayed as one, asking for divine guidance in their quest for liberty and justice. Ever since, Americans have shared a special sense of destiny as a nation dedicated under God to the cause of liberty for all men.
Through the storms of Revolution, Civil War, and the great World Wars, as well as during times of disillusionment and disarray, the nation has turned to God in prayer for deliverance. We thank you for answering our call, for, surely, he has. As a nation, we have been richly blessed with his love and generosity.3668
On February 25, 1984, in a radio address, President Reagan explained:
From the early days of the colonies, prayer in school was practiced and revered as an important tradition. Indeed, for nearly 200 years of our nation’s history, it was considered a natural expression of our religious freedom. But in 1962, the Supreme Court handed down a controversial decision prohibiting prayer in public schools.
Sometimes I can’t help but feel the First Amendment is being turned on its head. Ask yourselves: Can it really be true that the First Amendment can permit Nazis and Klu Klux Klansmen to march of public property, advocate the extermination of people of the Jewish faith and the subjugation of blacks, while the same amendment forbids our children from saying a prayer in school?
When a group of students at the Guilderland High School in Albany, New York, sought to use an empty classroom for voluntary prayer meetings, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said no. The court thought it might be dangerous because students might be coerced into praying in they saw the football captain or student body president participating in prayer meetings. …
Up to 80 percent of the American people support voluntary prayer. They understand what the founding fathers intended. The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people from religion; that amendment was written to protect religion from government tyranny.
The amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” What could be more clear?
The act that established our public school system called for public education to see that our children learned about religion and morality. References to God can be found in the Mayflower Compact of 1620, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem. Our legal tender states, “In God We Trust.”
When the Constitution was being debated at the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin rose to say, “The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see that God governs in the affairs of men. Without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.” He asked: “Have we now forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?” Franklin then asked the Convention to begin its daily deliberations by asking for the assistance of Almighty God.
George Washington believed that religion was an essential pillar of a strong society. In his Farewell Address, he said, “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” And when John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was asked in his dying hour if he had any farewell counsels to leave his children, Jay answered, “They have the Book.”
But now we’re told our children have no right to pray in school. Nonsense. The pendulum has swung too far toward intolerance against genuine religious freedom. It is time to redress the balance.
Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart noted if religious exercises are held to be impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Permission for such exercises for those who want them in necessary if the school are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit them is seen not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.
The Senate will soon vote on a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary vocal prayer in public schools. If two-thirds of the Senate approve, then we must convince the House leadership to permit a vote on the issue. I am confident that if the Congress passes our amendment this year, then the state legislatures will do likewise, and we’ll be able to celebrate a great victory for our children.
Our amendment would ensure that no child be forced to recite a prayer. Indeed, it explicitly states this. Nor would that state be allowed to compose the words of any prayer. But the courts could not forbid our children from voluntary vocal prayer in their schools. And by reasserting their liberty of free religious expression, we will be helping our children understand the diversity of America’s religious beliefs and practices.
If ever there was a time for you, the good people of this country, to make your voices heard, to make the mighty power of your will the decisive force in the halls of Congress, that time is now.3669
On March 2, 1984, at a Conservative Political Action Conference, President Ronald Reagan expressed:
If you take away the belief in a greater future, you cannot explain America—that we’re a people who believed there was a promised land; we were a people who believed we were chosen by God to create a greater world. …
Eric Liddell, Scotland’s Olympic champion runner, said in Chariots of Fire … “So where does the power come from to see the race to its end? From within. God made me for a purpose, and I will run for His pleasure.” … If we trust in Him, keep His work, and live our lives for His pleasure, He’ll give us the power we need—power to fight the good fight, to finish the race, and to keep the faith. …
We’re restoring our faith in the greatest resource this nation has—the mighty spirit of free people under God.3670
On March 6, 1984, at the annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, President Ronald Reagan stated:
There was minister who put his sermon text on the pulpit a half an hour before service. And one Sunday a smart aleck hid the last page. And the minister preached powerfully, but when he got to the words, “So Adams said to Eve,” he was horrified to discover that the final sheet was gone. And riffling through the other pages, he stalled time by repeating, “So Adam said to Eve”—and then in a low voice he said, “There seems to be a missing leaf.” …
Talking to a church audience like this reminds me of a little church in a little town in Illinois—Dixon, Illinois—that I used to attend as a boy. One sweltering Sunday morning in July, the minister told us he was going to preach the shortest sermon he had ever given. And then he said a single sentence: “If you think it’s hot today, just wait.” …
The debates over independence and the records of the Constitutional Convention make it clear that the founding fathers were sustained by their faith in God. In the Declaration of Independence itself, Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are " … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights … " And it was George Washington who said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.” So the record is clear. The first Americans proclaimed their freedom because they believed God himself had granted their liberty prayerfully, avidly seeking and humbly accepting God’s blessings on their new land.
For decades, America remained a deeply religious country, thanking God in peacetime and turning to Him in moments of crisis. During the Civil War, perhaps our nation’s darkest hour, Abraham Lincoln said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” Believe me, no one can serve in this office without understanding and believing exactly what he said. …
During World War II … a rally to promote war bonds was held at Madison Square Garden in New York. … Joe Louis, who had come from the cotton fields to become the world heavyweight prizefighting champion. … now [a] fifty-four-dollar-a-month private, walked out to center stage after all those other celebrities had been there, and he said, “I know we’ll win, because we’re on God’s side.” There was a moment of silence, and then that crowd nearly took the roof off.
During the civil rights struggles of the fifties and early sixties, millions worked for equality in the name of their Creator. Civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King based all their efforts on the claim that black or white, each of us is child of God. …
The Almighty who gave us this great land also gave us free will, the power under God to choose our own destiny. … America has begun a spiritual awakening. Faith and hope are being restored. Americans are turning back to God. Church attendance is up. Audiences for religious books and broadcasts are growing. …
One of my favorite Bible quotations comes from II Chronicles: " … If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and forgive their sins and heals their land.” …
School prayer. … From the early days of the American colonies, prayer in schools was practiced and revered as an important tradition. Indeed, for early two centuries of our history it was considered a natural expression of our religious freedom. Then in 1962, the Supreme Court declared school prayer illegal. Well, I firmly believe the loving God who has blessed our land and made us a good caring people should never have been expelled from America’s classrooms. And the country agrees. Polls show that by a majority of 80 percent, the American people want prayer back in our schools.
We stand on firm historical and constitutional ground. During the constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin rose to say, “The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see that God governs the affairs of men. Without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.” And he asked, “Have we not forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?” And then Franklin moved that the convention begin its daily deliberations by asking for the assistance of Almighty God.
Today, prayer remains a vital part of American public life. The Congress begins each day with prayer, and the Supreme Court begins each sitting with an invocation. Now, I just have to believe that if the members of Congress and Justices can acknowledge the Almighty, our children can too. …
Saint Paul wrote a verse that I’ve always cherished, “Now abide faith, hope, love, these three: but the greatest of these is love.” May we have faith in our God and all the good that we can do with His help.3671
On April 27, 1984, to Chinese community leaders in Beijing, China, President Ronald Reagan stated:
During my lifetime, I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state. These ideologies held, at first, a certain fascination for some intellectuals. But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet; indeed, they deny the existence of God.3672
On May 11, 1984, as recorded in the Santa Ana Register, President Reagan confided shortly after an attempted assassination:
I just feel there is a reason God spared me … He spared me so that I can devote the rest of my days to serving God.3673
On May 20, 1984, on a School Prayer Amendment to the Constitution, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I am deeply disappointed that, although a majority of the Senate voted for it, the school prayer amendment fell short of the special two-thirds majority needed to win in the Senate today. I would like to express my heart-felt gratitude for the unprecedented outpouring of support from citizens who made their views knows to their senators on this issue. And I want to thank Senator Baker, Thurmond, Helms, and Hatch for their valiant efforts to restore this revered American tradition.
This has been an important debate revealing the extent to which the freedom of religious speech has been abridged in our nation’s public schools. The issue of free religious speech in not dead as a result of this vote. We have suffered a setback, but we have not been defeated. Our struggle will go on.
The courts themselves can restore a more balanced view of the First Amendment, as we have seen in some recent cases. My administration will continue our efforts to allow government to accommodate prayer and religious speech by citizens in ways that do not risk an establishment of religion. I urge the Congress to consider the equal access legislation before both Houses so that voluntary student religious groups can meet on public school property on the same terms as other student groups.3674
In a July 12, 1984, response to a questionnaire by The Scoreboard, Reagan gave his views on values:
In part the erosion of these values has given way to a celebration of forms of sexual expression most people reject. We will resist the efforts of some to obtain government endorsement of homosexuality.
Like so many Americans I have been disturbed at attempts to water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy with respect to religious freedom.
I firmly believe that freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.3675
On August 23, 1984, following the enactment of the “Equal Access Bill of 1984,” President Ronald Reagan spoke at an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast at the Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas:
In 1962, the Supreme Court in the New York prayer case banned the … 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—pass a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago—to allow student prayer groups the same access to school rooms 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.
Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience. … without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure. … America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.3676
On August 23, 1984, continuing his address to the 17,000 supporters at the Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast, the morning before he was nominated as the Republican candidate, President Ronald Reagan expressed:
The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related.
The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance and freedom and open-mindedness. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? That they refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives?3677
In 1984, President Reagan observed:
Religion and government are inevitably related.3678
On January 14, 1985, in a Proclamation for National Sanctity of Human Life Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:
If America is to remain what God, in His wisdom, intended for it to be—a refuge, a safe haven for those seeking human rights—then we must once again extend the most basic human right to the most vulnerable members of the human family. We must commit ourselves to a future in which the right to life of every human being—no matter how weak, no matter how small, no matter how defenseless—is protected by our laws and public policy.3679
On Monday, January 21, 1985, in his Second Inaugural Address, President Ronald Reagan stated:
God bless you and welcome back. … There is, however, one who is not with us today: Representative Gillis Long of Louisiana left us last night. I wonder if we could all join in a moment of silent prayer. … Amen.
This is, as Senator Mathias told us, the 50th time that we the people have celebrated this historic occasion. When the first President, George Washington, placed his hand upon the Bible, he stood less than a single day’s journey by horseback from raw, untamed wilderness. So much has changed. And yet we stand together as we did two centuries ago. …
Well, with heart and hand, let us stand as one today: One people under God determined that our future shall be worthy of our past. …
The time has come for a new American emancipation—a great national drive to tear down economic barriers and liberate the spirit of enterprise in the most distressed areas of our country. My friends, together we can do this, and do it we must, so help me God.
As an older American, I remember a time when people of different race, creed, or ethnic origin in our land found hatred and prejudice installed in social custom and, yes, in law. There is no story more heartening in our history than the progress that we have made toward the “brotherhood of man” that God intended for us. Let us resolve there will be no turning back or hesitation on the road to an America rich in dignity and abundant with opportunity for all our citizens.
For all our problems, our differences, we are together as of old, as we raise our voices to the God who is the Author of this most tender music. And may He continue to hold us close as we fill the world with our sound—sound in unity, affection, and love—one people under God, dedicated to the dream of freedom that He has placed in the human heart, called upon now to pass that dream on to a waiting and hopeful world. …
God bless you and may God bless America.3680
On January 29, 1985, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Today our nation is at peace and is enjoying prosperity, but our need for prayer is even greater. We can give thanks to God for the ever-increasing abundance He has bestowed on us, and we can remember all those in our society who are in need of help, whether it be material assistance in the form of charity or simply a friendly word of encouragement.
We are all God’s handiwork, and it is appropriate or us as individuals and as a nation to call on Him in prayer.3681
On January 30, 1985, President Ronald Reagan spoke at the National Religious Broadcaster’s Convention held in Washington, D.C.:
And if we could get God and discipline back in our schools, maybe we could get drugs and violence out.3682
On January 31, 1985, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Ronald Reagan stated:
You see the heroism and the goodness of man and know in a special way that we are all God’s children. The clerk and the king and the communist were made in His image. We all have souls, and we all have the same problems. I’m convinced, more than ever, that man finds liberation only when he binds himself to God and commits himself to his fellow man.3683
On February 6, 1985, President Reagan delivered his State of the Union Address:
I am pleased, that after four years of united effort, the American people have brought forth a nation renewed—stronger, freer, and more secure than before. …
Tonight, America is stronger because of the values that we hold dear. We believe faith and freedom must be our guiding stars, for they show us truth, they make us brave, they give us hope and leave us wiser than we were.
Our progress began not in Washington, D.C., but in the hearts of our families, communities, work places and voluntary groups, which together are unleashing the invincible spirit of one great nation under God. … .
No citizen need tremble, nor the world shudder, if a child stands in a classroom and breathes a prayer. We ask you again, give children back a right they had for a century and a half or more.3684
In 1985, President Reagan issued a National Sanctity of Human Life Proclamation, in which he stated:
Our laws have sought to foster and protect human life at all of its stages.3685
On April 16, 1985, at the Conference on Religious Liberty, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I believe that the most essential element of our defense of freedom is our insistence on speaking out for the cause of religious liberty.3686
On May 6, 1985, to the citizens of Hambach, in the Federal Republic of Germany, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Each of us, each of you, is made in the most enduring, powerful image of Western civilization. We’re made in the image of God, the image of God the Creator.3687
On May 11, 1985, in a Radio Address to the Nation on Mother’s Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I find my thoughts turning to my own mother, Nelle Reagan. She was a truly remarkable woman—ever so strong in her determination yet always tender, always giving of herself to others. She never found time in her life to complain; she was too busy living those values she sought to impart in my brother and myself. She was the greatest influence on my life, and as I think of her this weekend I remember the words of Lincoln, “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my mother.”3688
On July 2, 1985, in addressing the freed hostages of a hijacked Trans World Airlines jet, President Ronald Reagan stated:
And in closing, I’d like to say that many of my fellow hostages share with me the profound conviction that it was our Father, God, that brought us through this ordeal safely. And in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, I just wonder if you’d join with me in a brief word of thanks to the Lord.
Our Father, we just gather before you in humble adoration and praise and thanks. For we know that it was your strong hands that held us safely through this ordeal, that gave us the courage and the strength to withstand the darkest times. And, so, Father, we just thank you for this, and we give you all the praise and the glory, through Jesus. Amen.3689
On July 25, 1985, in a Time Magazine interview with Hugh Sidey, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I have a very real and deep faith. Probably, I’m indebted to my mother for that. And I figure that He will make a decision, and I can’t doubt that whatever He decides will be the right decision.3690
On January 6, 1986, in a message on the Observance of Orthodox Christmas, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The date that you and we celebrate Christmas may be different. But the meaning and magnificence of what we celebrate—the divine birth of one man, hero, strong yet tender, Prince of Peace—is the same. This birth brought forth good tidings of great joy to all people. For unto us was born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord.3691
On January 28, 1986, in his address to the Nation after the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth,” to “touch the face of God.”3692
On April 19, 1986, in a Proclamation for Education Day 1986, President Ronald Reagan stated:
No true education can leave out the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life.3693
On May 1, 1986, in a Proclamation for a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Prayer, of course, is deeply personal: The way in which it finds expression depends on our individual dispositions as well as on our religious convictions. Just as our religious institutions are guaranteed freedom in this land, so also do we cherish the diversity of our faiths and the freedom afforded to each of us to pray according to the promptings of our individual conscience.3694
On June 11, 1986, in remarking to participants of the Young Astronauts Program, President Ronald Reagan stated:
When we come to the edge of our known world, we’re standing on the shores of the infinite. Dip your hand in that limitless sea; you’re touching the mystery of God’s universe.3695
On July 3, 1986 at the relighting of the Statue of Liberty, President Ronald Reagan expressed:
I’ve always thought that a Providential Hand had something to do with the founding of this country, that God had His reasons for placing this land here between two great oceans to be found by a certain kind of people.3696
On July 29, 1986, at a White House briefing for Republican student interns on Soviet-United States Relations, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The purpose toward which everything else we do in this town is—or should be—aimed. … Creating a peaceful and safe world in which we can all securely enjoy the rights and the freedoms that have been given to us by God.3697
On December 22, 1986, upon signing the 1987 National Day of Prayer Proclamation, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Many of us have been taught to pray by people we love. In my case, it was my mother. I learned quite literally at her knee. My mother gave me a great deal, but nothing she gave me was more important than that special gift, the knowledge of the happiness and solace to be gained by talking to the Lord.
The way we pray depends both on our religious convictions and our own individual dispositions, but the light of prayer has a common core. It is our hopes and our aspirations, our sorrows and fears, our deep remorse and renewed resolve, our thanks and joyful praise, and most especially our love, all turned toward a loving God.3698
On May 20, 1987, upon receiving the Department of Education Report on Improving Education, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I remember one day I was sitting in the principal’s office. I wasn’t invited there for a social visit. And he said something that fortunately stuck in my mind, and I remembered. He said, “Reagan, I don’t care what you think of me now. I’m only concerned with what you’ll think of me 15 years from now.”
And I thank the Lord that I had the opportunity to tell him shortly before he did how I felt about him 15 years afterward, after that visit in his office. And he was a very great influence on my life.3699
On May 21, 1987, in a Proclamation of Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We pray for peace and for devotion and strength of soul to build it and protect it always. We pray and we resolve to keep holy the memory of those who have died for our country and to make their cause inseparably our own. We pray and we promise, so that one day Taps will sound again for the young and the brave and the good.3700
On July 3, 1987, announcing America’s Economic Bill of Rights, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We’re still Jefferson’s children, still believers that freedom is the unalienable right of all of God’s children.3701
On September 8, 1987, in remarking on Administration goals to Senior Presidential Appointees, President Ronald Reagan stated:
And may I conclude with a little Irish blessing—although, some suggest it’s a curse: May those who love us, love us. And those who don’t love us, may God turn their hearts. And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limping.3702
On January 25, 1988, the 100th Congress of the United States of America, by a Joint Resolution, declared the first Thursday of each May to be recognized as a National Day of Prayer. Wholly concurring with Congress, President Ronald Reagan the bill into law:
PUBLIC LAW 100–307—MAY 5, 1988
One Hundredth Congress of the United States of America
AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the twenty-fifth day of January, one thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight
AN ACT
To provide for setting aside the first Thursday in May as the date on which the National Day of Prayer is celebrated.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the joint resolution entitled “Joint Resolution to provide for setting aside an appropriate day as a National Day of Prayer,” approved April 17, 1952 (Public Law 82–324; 66 Stat. 64), is amended by striking “a suitable day each year, other than a Sunday,” and inserting in lieu thereof “the first Thursday in May in each year.”
Speaker of the House of Representatives
President of the Senate Pro Tempore
APPROVED
May–5 1988
Ronald Reagan.3703
On January 25, 1988, at a fund-raising luncheon for Governor Richard L. Thornburg, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Ben Franklin once said, “Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.” And ever since he told me that, I’ve been doing just fine.3704
On February 3, 1988, in a Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, President Ronald Reagan stated:
The First Continental Congress made its first act a prayer—the beginning of a great tradition. We have then, a lesson from the founders of our land, those giants of soul and intellect whose courageous pledge of life and fortune and sacred honor, and whose “firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,” have ever guided and inspired Americans and all who would fan freedom’s mighty flames and live in “freedom’s holy light.” That lesson is clear: That in the winning of freedom and in the living of life, the first step is prayer. …
Let us, young and old, join together, as did the First Continental Congress, in the first step—humble, heartfelt prayer. Let us do so for the Love of God and His great goodness, in search of His guidance, and the grace of repentance, in seeking His blessings, His peace, and the resting of His kind and holy hands on ourselves, our Nation, our friends in the defense of freedom, and all mankind, now and always.3705
On February 4, 1988, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Our forefathers drew on the wisdom and strength of God when they turned a vast wilderness into a blessed land of plenty called the United States of America. God has truly blessed this country, but we never should fall into the trap that would detract from the universality of God’s gift. It is for all mankind. God’s love is the hope and the light of the world.3706
On May 18, 1988, at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Commencement Ceremony, New London, Connecticut, President Ronald Reagan stated:
It’s our earnest prayer to serve America in peace. It’s our solemn commitment to defend her in a time of war.3707
On June 3, 1988, to members of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, England, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Our faith is in a higher law. Yes, we believe in prayer and its power. And like the Founding Fathers of both our lands, we hold that humanity was meant not to be dishonored by the all-powerful state, but to live in the image and likeness of Him who made us.3708
On July 28, 1988, at the Student Congress on Evangelism, President Ronald Reagan stated:
If Benjamin Franklin rose to invoke the Almighty as the Constitution itself was being drafted, if the Congress of the United States opens each day with prayer, then isn’t it time we let God back into the classroom? …
I grew up in a home where I was taught to believe in intercessory prayer. I know it’s those prayers and millions like them that are building high and strong the cathedral of freedom that we call America, those prayers and millions like them that will always keep our country secure and make her a force for good in this too troubled world. …
Whenever I consider the history of this nation, I’m struck by how deeply imbued with faith the American people were, even from the very first. Many of the first settlers came for the express purpose of worshipping in freedom.
Historian Samuel Morrison wrote of one such group: “Doubting nothing and fearing no man, they undertook all to set all crooked ways straight and create a new Heaven and Earth. If they were not permitted to do that in England, they would find some other place to establish their city of God.” Well, that place was this broad and open land we call America.3709
On September 22, 1988, at a Republican Party Rally, Waco, Texas, President Ronald Reagan stated:
When the liberals say “family,” they mean “Big Brother in Washington.” When we say “family,” we mean “honor thy father and mother.”3710
On October 14, 1988, in congratulating the crew of the Space shuttle Discovery, President Ronald Reagan stated:
This is the mission for which our nation itself was created, and we ask for God’s guidance. America’s as large as the universe, as infinite as space, as limitless as the vision and courage of her people.3711
On November 11, 1988, at the Veteran’s Day Ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, President Ronald Reagan stated:
We have faith that as He does all His sacred children, the Lord will bless you and keep you, the Lord will make His face to shine upon you and give you peace, now and forevermore.3712
On December 1, 1988, at a dinner honoring Representative Jack F. Kemp of New York, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I believe we really can, however, say that God did give mankind virtually unlimited gifts to invent, produce and create. And for that reason alone, it would be wrong for governments to devise a tax structure that suppresses and denies those gifts. …
And come January, when I saddle up and ride into the sunset it will be with the knowledge that we’ve done great things. We kept faith with a promise as old as this land we love and as big as the sky. A brilliant vision of America as a shining city upon a hill. Thanks to all of you, and with God’s help, America’s greatest chapter is still to be written, for the best is yet to come.3713
On December 16, 1988, in his remarks upon his departure from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, President Ronald Reagan stated:
Help one another, trust in yourselves, and have faith in God and you’ll find more joy and happiness than you could imagine.3714
On January 11, 1989, in his Farewell Address to the Nation, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace. …
I am warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result ultimately in an erosion of the American spirit.3715
On January 12, 1989, at the Armed Forces Farewell Salute, Camp Springs, Maryland, President Ronald Reagan stated:
On behalf of all America, I thank you and pray God that He may bless you now and forever.3716
On January 14, 1989, in his Final Radio Address to the Nation, President Ronald Reagan stated:
I’ve often recalled one group of early settlers making a treacherous crossing of the Atlantic on a small ship when their leader, a minister, noted that perhaps their venture would fail and they would become a byword, a footnote to history. But perhaps, too, with God’s help, they might found a new world, a city upon a hill, a light unto nations.3717
President Ronald Reagan declared:
There are times when I’m in church, I think God might recognize the magnitude of my responsibility and give me an extra portion of His grace … and I don’t feel guilty for feeling that way.3718
Within the covers of the Bible are all the answers for all the problems men face. The Bible can touch hearts, order minds and refresh souls.3719
May we have faith in our God and all the good we can do with His help. May we stand firm in the hope of making America all that she can be—a nation of opportunity and prosperity and a force for peace and good will among nations.3720
President Ronald Reagan wrote:
The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation for our freedoms. In the family we learn our first lessons of God and man, love and discipline, rights and responsibilities, human dignity and human frailty.
Our families give us daily examples of these lessons being put into practice. In raising and instructing our children, in providing personal and compassionate care for the elderly, in maintaining the spiritual strength of religious commitment among our people—in these and other ways, America’s families make immeasurable contributions to America’s well-being.
Today more than ever, it is essential that these contributions not be taken for granted and that each of us remember that the strength of our families is vital to the strength of our nation.3721
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life—the unborn—without diminishing the value of all human life. … There is no cause more important.3722
On June 22, 1990 at the annual board meeting of the Heritage Foundation, Carmel, California, Ronald Reagan stated:
You may think this a little mystical, and I’ve said it many times before, but I believe there was a divine plan to place this great continent here between two oceans to be found by peoples from every corner of the Earth. I believe we were preordained to carry the torch of freedom for the world.3723
On July 15, 1991, at the Captives Nations Week Conference, Los Angles, California, Ronald Reagan stated:
Our founding documents proclaim to the world that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few. It is the universal right of all God’s children.3724
On November 4, 1991, at the dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, Ronald Reagan stated:
My optimism comes not just from my strong faith in God, but from my strong and enduring faith in man.3725
On March 6, 1992, at a tribute to his wife, Nancy Reagan, at their 40th Wedding Anniversary, Ronald Reagan stated:
With Nancy, I soon realized, my life was complete. With her, nothing was impossible. … When I needed her most, she was with me. On a fateful day in March 1981, an assassin’s bullet came within an inch of my heart. But perhaps it didn’t come closer because Nancy was already there, in my heart, making it stronger. Her love washed away the pain. She rescued me, prodded me during the hard work of recovery, bringing me back to a normal and healthy life. …
I always try to be there for the woman who has given so much to me. She lost both her parents when she was First Lady. I was very fond of them, and quite grateful they produced such a wonderful daughter. In fact, whenever Nancy’s birthday came, I sent my mother-in-law flowers. I also removed the mother-in-law jokes from my speeches! I remember holding Nancy’s hand as we whispered prayers when she battled cancer. …
I’ll always be grateful that Nancy was at my side along my chosen trails.3726
On August 17, 1992, at the Republican National Convention, Houston, Texas, Ronald Reagan stated:
Whether we come from poverty or wealth; whether we are Afro-American or Irish-American; Christian or Jewish, from big cities or small towns, we are all equal in the eyes of God. …
May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism. …
My fellow Americans, on behalf of both of us, goodbye, God bless each and every one of you, and God bless this country we love.3727
On December 4, 1992, in a message entitled, “Democracy’s Next Battle,” delivered at the Oxford Union Society, Oxford, England, Ronald Reagan stated:
At the height of World War II, Sir Winston Churchill reminded Britons that, “These are not dark days; these are great days—the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.3728
On January 13, 1993, at the Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremony at the White House, Ronald Reagan stated:
Presidents come and go. History comes and goes, but principles endure and insure future generations to defend liberty—not a gift from government, but a blessing from our Creator.3729
On November 5, 1994, in a hand-written letter to the American people, Ronald Reagan stated:
I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done. I will continue to share life’s journey with my beloved Nancy and my family. …
When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you.3730