Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh president, never has been remembered as a pleasant fellow. He had a severe temper. He once killed a man in a duel. He supported the removal of American Indians from the South, sparking the infamous Trail of Tears.
Yet this gruff man may also have been a Christian. Nearing death in 1845, he reportedly told his family, “Death has no terror for me. … What are my sufferings compared to those of the blessed Savior? I am ready to depart when called.” Later he told them: “Be good children, and we shall all meet in heaven.”
Such stories are at the heart of a new book, “God and the Oval Office” (W Publishing Group), by John C. McCollister. At 244 pages, it recounts the religious faith of all 43 American presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush.
The book does not argue that every president — including the Founding Fathers — was an evangelical Christian, but it makes clear that the overwhelming majority of presidents expressed a faith in God.
“The book does not make judgmental statements,” McCollister said. “It simply says, these are the facts. You draw your own conclusion.”
Some of the book’s more interesting stories:
• Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president, rejected the major tenets of Christianity — including Christ’s deity — and even put together his own compilation of the Gospels, in which he cut out the stories about Jesus’ miracles.
But Jefferson also saw the need for religion in society and once was on his way to church when he told a bystander: “[N]o nation has yet existed or been governed without religion. I, as chief magistrate of this nation, am bound to give it the sanction of my example.”
• John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, read at least three chapters of the Bible each day and “lamented the fact that neither the clergymen nor their flocks did much to rid society” of slavery. When he died, one pastor said, “The slave has lost a champion.”
• James Buchanan, the 15th president, wanted to join a church upon leaving office but had trouble doing so because of his support of slavery on a limited basis. His first attempt at joining a Presbyterian church was rejected because it supported abolition. It took him nearly four years to find a church.
• Abraham Lincoln, who succeeded Buchanan, often stood at his pew in church while silently praying — despite the fact that those around him kneeled. With Lincoln being 6-foot-4, this created quite a sight.
He told a parishioner: “When my generals visit the White House, they stand when their commander in chief enters the Oval Office. Isn’t it proper, then, that I stand for my commander in chief?”
There are other stories. James K. Polk (11th president) didn’t receive visitors on Sunday, out of respect for his wife’s beliefs.
Andrew Johnson (17th president) may have been a closet Catholic. Woodrow Wilson (28th president) saw every event in world history as being part of God’s will.
McCollister believes that three of America’s first four presidents, Washington, Jefferson and James Madison, were deists — that is, they believed that God created the universe and left it to run its own course. In deism, God is distant. Although Jefferson generally is acknowledged by scholars to have been a deist, Washington is viewed by some to have been a Christian.
McCollister majored in history at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, before receiving a master’s degree at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He holds a doctorate in communications from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. “God and the Oval Office” is his 21st book. Many of his other books have been about baseball. (BP)
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