Nor is there anything given about a democracy’s success or longevity after it’s been constitutionally established. One or another form of authoritarianism is. What does any of this have to do, though, with “our form of government”? A great deal, I suggest.Īs even a cursory historical survey confirms, self-governance is not the norm in human affairs. Authentic religious faith reminds us that our obligations extend beyond “me.” Authentic religious faith reminds us that human beings are matter and spirit and that, without the latter, our material selves are just an accidental conjunction of cosmic biochemical forces. In fact, Eisenhower was speaking an important truth, however inelegant his formulation.Īuthentic religious faith reminds us that this world is not all there is-that the world as we perceive it is englobed in a larger, transcendent reality that gives meaning to the here and now. There, the president-elect declared that “our form of government no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.” Ike, no theologian, was subsequently mocked for his seeming indifference to the nuances of religious belief and their impact on public life his comment confirmed to his cultured despisers their stereotypical (and quite false) view of him as a smiling dunce. Eisenhower addressed the Freedoms Foundation at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Three days before Christmas 1952 and a month before his inauguration as the thirty-fourth president of the United States, Dwight D.
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