Gerald Ford, Religion, and Healing After Vietnam and Watergate
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Volume 43 Number 3 Article 2 March 2015 As God Gives Me to See the Right: Gerald Ford, Religion, and Healing after Vietnam and Watergate David Veenstra Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege Part of the American Politics Commons, Christianity Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Veenstra, David (2015) "As God Gives Me to See the Right: Gerald Ford, Religion, and Healing after Vietnam and Watergate," Pro Rege: Vol. 43: No. 3, 12 - 18. Available at: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/pro_rege/vol43/iss3/2 This Feature Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at Digital Collections @ Dordt. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pro Rege by an authorized administrator of Digital Collections @ Dordt. For more information, please contact [email protected]. As God Gives Me to See the Right: Gerald Ford, Religion, and Healing after Vietnam and Watergate congressman who had been appointed to the vice presidency just nine months earlier, described the moment as a catharsis: “Our long national night- mare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.” Then he added, “Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.”1 Forty years later, views of that moment and of his presidency persist: after years of convo- luted politics and deceit, the nation had an op- portunity to catch its breath under the calm even by David Veenstra if uninspiring leadership of Gerald Ford. In the absence of any major domestic upheaval—save In history’s light, August 9, 1974, was the moment for the political backlash following the pardon of when Watergate, along with the interminable de- Nixon—coupled with few policy initiatives, his- bate over American involvement in Vietnam, torians have largely focused on Ford’s personality, ended. Gerald Ford took over the nation’s highest dealings with congress, and management styles office, replacing the dirty tricks and heavy-hand- and have accepted his presidency as an interreg- ed wielding of power of Richard Nixon’s term num that allowed the nation to refocus its gaze with such uncomplicated virtues as integrity and from Washington, D.C. What has often been steadiness. Journalists and politicians alike lauded overlooked is the way Ford’s religious beliefs and his unassuming character and ethics, hoping his practices differed from those of Nixon, offered would be a healing presidency, if for nothing else, a unique discourse for presidential action, and proving simply that the Nixon experience need helped move the nation beyond Watergate and not be the presidential norm. Ford, a longtime Vietnam. Ford was, as one historian observed, “easily the Dr. David Veenstra is Assistant Professor of History at most active Christian to reside in the White House 2 University of St. Francis, Joliet, Illinois. since Woodrow Wilson.” He came to his religious 12 Pro Rege—March 2015 convictions organically. Ford had grown up in Ford met regularly for prayer with John Rhodes, Grand Rapids, Michigan, which was dominated Albert Quie, and Melvin Laird from 1967-1974. by Dutch immigrants and Calvinist theology. By But when reporters asked him about the prayer the 1930s and 1940s, the community had come to meetings, Ford insisted that they were “a very emphasize not only personal piety but also a reli- quiet, much off-the-record group.”7 His aide ex- gious understanding of the limited state known plained, he “doesn’t like to wear his religion on as “sphere sovereignty,” a product of the Dutch his sleeve” because, he worried, “many people get the idea that if you say you have religious beliefs, you somehow think you’re perfect.”8 At the same Ford had grown up in Grand time, he also made it a point shortly before Nikita Rapids, Michigan, which Khrushchev’s visit to the United States in 1959 to suggest to the State Department that President was dominated by Dutch Eisenhower take Khruschev to church services. immigrants and Calvinist “The Communist leader could never understand theology. the American people, he said, unless he saw them at worship in an expression of their religious faith.”9 Calvinist revival, launched by Abraham Kuyper Ford’s choice to keep his faith private contrast- in the late nineteenth century, “which allowed for ed with the increasing political religiosity during greater optimism and government cooperation the Cold War—what sociologist Robert Bellah in areas of mutual concern, such as welfare and described as American “civil religion,” combin- education.” 3 Ford, though largely from English ing Judeo-Christian beliefs with a reverence for ancestry and raised Episcopalian, fit well in this the American state into an abstract belief of a culture; for twenty five years, he received better “nation under God.”10 President Eisenhower pro- than 60 percent of the vote for reelection to the moted this kind of civil religion, hosting the first House of Representatives.4 His parents had met Presidential Prayer Breakfast and overseeing the at Grace Episcopal church, which they attended words “in God we trust” added to the Pledge of weekly, and raised him in “an atmosphere of per- Allegiance.11 His immediate successors emulated sonal prayer, belief in God and the Bible.” At a him. During the Vietnam War, however, ques- young age, he memorized Proverbs 3:5-6, which tions of an innate national righteousness eventu- reads, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and ally challenged these traditional values, creating lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy a fragmented pluralism that seemingly precluded ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy moral consensus. It appeared, as novelist John paths.” Throughout his life he repeated this daily.5 Updike said, “God had taken away his blessing Religion remained intrinsic to Ford’s outlook from the United States.”12 as his life became public, though he consciously After a narrowly won election in 1968, kept his activities with organized religion pri- Richard Nixon perpetuated a permanent public vate. As a congressman, he, with his family, at- relations campaign to build support—including tended services weekly at Immanuel-on-the-Hill merchandizing religiosity and increasingly using in Alexandria, Virginia, where Ford served as this as a wedge. At his inauguration, he amplified an usher and occasionally a lay reader.6 He also the religious tradition of the coronation by ask- worked on a program with his parish to provide ing clergy representing Jewish, Protestant, Roman government-assisted fair housing to local residents Catholic, and Greek Orthodox traditions to of- and services to low-income families, supported fer prayers. Nearby, administration officials con- providing tuition vouchers for the parents of chil- ducted a full-scale ecumenical service in the West dren who attended parochial schools, and led an Auditorium of the State Department. “Never be- issue-discussion group on Capitol Hill with mem- fore,” as Chaplain of Princeton University Charles bers of local congregations. Perhaps more striking, Henderson observed, “had so much prayer been Pro Rege—March 2015 13 invoked to place the nation’s chief of state in of- Tennessee, becoming the first president to ever ad- fice.”13 Then, on Sunday, Nixon instituted regu- dress a religious crusade. As the choir sang “How lar worship services in the East Room of the Great Thou Art,” Nixon and Graham strode to- White House for about two hundred invited gether across the stage.21 Then, tying church activ- guests. Previous presidents had held services on ity and partisan politics together, Graham intro- special occasions, but the weekly worship was a duced the president, saying, “I’m for change—but White House first. The president and his fam- the Bible teaches us to obey authority.”22 Dissent ily selected the pastor. Then, acting in the role against national politics in this conflation became of worship leader, he opened the service and sat un-American and un-Christian. down on the front row.14 Nixon answered con- Watergate ultimately revealed the lengths that cerns about the appropriateness of these services Nixon would travel to guarantee votes. It also by asking the question “What better example showed that the religious rhetoric was connected could there be than to bring the worship service, more closely to partisan action than to any sincere with all its solemn meaning, right into the White beliefs. The regular White House worship services House?”15 But, as historians Richard Pierard and ceased just days after Watergate burglar James Robert Linder argued, the worship services also McCord began testifying to the Federal Grand constituted “a ‘conforming’ or ‘established’ reli- Jury about the administration’s involvement in gion,” with Nixon serving as the titular head. 16 the break-in. Betrayed by Watergate’s revelations, Reporters and politicians also wondered about a congressman, when asked about Ford’s religious the “rotating company of prelates, evangelists and views, quickly cautioned, “Let’s not make the rabbis, many seemingly more interested in matters same mistake we made with President Nixon.”23 of politics than of the spirit”; White House papers When Ford took office, public support for later confirmed the dual-purpose: An ACTION the presidency and the Republican Party had memo of February 1970 urged proceeding with eroded to 24 percent.24 Acutely