President Eisenhower, his Rejection of the Values of His Parents’s Faith Tradition, and His Parting Shot at the Military-Industrial Complex

When Dwight D. Eisenhower was baptized into National Presbyterian Church in DC on February 1, 1953, ten days after he was inaugurated as President of the United States, he wasn’t a novice devotee of Christianity, but he was new to formal church membership. He was also the only US president ever to be baptized while in office. DDE had been reared in the Brethren in Christ denomination—a pacifistic Mennonite-influenced faith-group, but never requested baptism, which—as with Baptists among others—was for adults (or pre-adults old enough to ask of their own volition to be baptized); not for children or infants.

The Reverend Edward E. L. Elson, senior minister of National Presbyterian Church, baptized the former military hero and president of Columbia University Presbyterian style—by sprinkling—not by immersion, the method of baptism Eisenhower would have observed growing up in a Brethren in Christ community. Elson in 1969, after his retirement as Pastor of NPC, became chaplain of the United States Senate.

President and Mrs. Eisenhower (Mamie), a lifelong Presbyterian, attended the influential church regularly, if you can imagine, with J. Edgar Hoover who was a member and a trustee for the Connecticut Avenue congregation. Ronald Reagan would similarly attend services there during his presidency.

Surely some brilliant doctoral student in political science has done the research to explain what sets of personal experience and professional engagement brought about his rather dramatic shift in his understanding of faith. Born in Denison, Texas, in 1890, his parents moved him and his two older brothers to Abilene, Kansas, when he was 18 months old. He’d stay there until he left for Westpoint in 1910.

Abilene, Kansas, had been established less than twenty years before the birth of DDE by adherents of the Brethren in Christ tradition, which came into being in 1767 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. His grandfather was a Brethren in Christ bishop. I’ve already alluded to this, but I bring up again the fact that Mennonites were pacifists. They were by and large suspicious of governmental agencies. For context, a reminder that the Declaration of Independence hadn’t been written when the Brethren in Christ denomination was born.

Eisenhower goes on to become a major proponent of civil religion, which by definition attempts to blend religion and government. The incongruity is stunning. This much can be said without any significant research. As an arch foe of Communists who officially decried religion, Eisenhower believed a major way the US could keep its distance from Communism was to embrace religion—not religion in general but traditional if not decidedly conservative Christianity in particular. He naively believed that religion was the most reliable entity for preserving morality. (In our time, Trump, Paxton, the oligarchs, and MAGAt ministers—among others!—have blown that theory to hell.)

Without a doubt Elson’s preaching cheered on Eisenhower’s championing of civil religion. But not Elson’s only. Presbyterian (natch!) pastor, George MacPherson Docherty, was behind the the 1954 push to amend the Pledge of Allegiance by adding the words “under God” after “one nation.” And Eisenhower was directly responsible for having “In God We Trust” emblazoned on coinage and currency, beginning in 1955.

Neither of these should ever should ever have happened—for several reasons the main one having nothing to do with patriotism. The reason is that both are untrue. “We” who? There has never been a time in the history of United States when everyone who is a citizen believed that God existed much less that there was any basis for trusting any deity. The nation had never had any sort of widely shared view of who God is or that God exists.

It is absolutely pro-American to deny the existence of God; there are those then and now who identify as atheists. If the god of MAGAts is the final word (of course it isn’t!) on the matter then I’m an atheist as I embrace the God made known in the teachings of Jesus. In any case, freedom of religion has always meant freedom from religion.

To further the irony, Eisenhower’s evolution continued. I have no reason to believe he ever reconsidered the acts mentioned above. But as one of the most highly respected military leaders in US history, it is jarring to hear him say in his farewell speech as President:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

This is my kind of patriotism. The civil religion DDE so wanted and got would never critique the military. That has much to do with our current undoing.