Ronald Reagan’s Spiritual Roots

One hundred years ago, he was born over the bakery in an obscure Illinois town. His father said he looked like a fat little Dutchman but maybe someday he could be president.

With no thanks to his alcoholic father but enormous gratitude toward his thrifty, Bible teaching, church leader mother, Ronald Reagan appeared on the state and national political scene after a long period when his religious roots were temporarily eclipsed by secular pursuits in acting and activism. But the biblical dictum of Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he shall go and when he is old he will not depart from it when he is old,” was probably never more true than when Nelle Reagan’s church-going son ascended to the presidency of the United States, saying he intended to govern as he campaigned—conservatively with spiritual values front and center.

I was privileged to ask Reagan a question in a unique press conference sponsored by the Eastern Chapter of National Religious Broadcasters. It was held at Liberty University when he was first a candidate for the U.S. presidency. Standing only a few feet away from me, Reagan spoke of open support for the freedom of school prayer in public schools.

On several other occasions, he spoke at national gatherings of the broadcasters. Listening to the golden phrases in support of God’s Word and the predictions of the collapse of the Soviet oppression sharpened our discernment of a steady fire in his spiritual being to see Communism tossed on the ash heap of absurd atheism.

As liberal pundits warned against antagonizing the threatening Soviet brute Reagan had called an “evil empire,” he stood and declared on January 31, 1983:

“Think of it—the most awesome military machine in history—but it is no match for that one 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. He gave us His love and forgiveness, taught us truth, and left us hope. In the book of John it tells us that, ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’”

Reagan also touted his proclamation of 1983 as the Year of the Bible with hopes that more Americans would read it. Moments before he quoted John 3:16, he had taunted the Soviet Union saying, “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.”

We broadcasters glanced at each other in stunned amazement as thunderous applause echoed through the hall. Could it be we had a conservative Christian president who didn't fear political opposition, global bully or threatening atheism? His two terms proved we did.

On a hot July afternoon in 2004, I stood on Main Street in Tampico, Illinois and viewed the second-floor apartment over humble stores below. It was a Saturday, but no car passed for twenty minutes. Tampico looked like a western cattle town with all the cow hands elsewhere. “This is the birthplace of Ronald Reagan?” I mused. Isaiah 58:10 says, “Then shall thy light rise in obscurity,” and Reagan’s surely did.

Too much time is spent analyzing Reagan, the man in the White House, rather than looking at Reagan, the boy in church.

Several miles to the north of Tampico is Dixon, Illinois where Reagan grew up. The Sears Roebuck catalog kit house is modest, but its history is staggering. Reagan often dragged his drunken father in from the front lawn and found his strength to go on and excel by attending the Christian church down the street. There, he heard preachers tell of the dreadful persecution of Christians in the recent Russian Communist takeover and of God’s grace toward a dying world.

As a boy, he eagerly read a popular youth novel and emulated its hero, who eventually entered public life and changed history. On finishing the book, Reagan told his mother that he wanted to be like that man and that he wanted to be baptized. He was baptized shortly thereafter, but becoming like the novel’s hero took much longer.

Reagan emulated good and godly preachers, taught Sunday school, and watched his godly mother, Nelle, share the Bread of Life and perform endless charitable deeds. He was so articulate and winsome a speaker that some thought he’d naturally go into the ministry (and much later it appeared he had done that as a minister in the vein of Romans 13:5). As a lifeguard at the local waterfront, he rescued dozens and then off he went to college and a string of broadcasting jobs, and then acting. He evolved from uncertain Democrat into conservative Republican.

Spiritual events after the obscure years refocused his mind on biblical, godly truth, concentrating it all in his near death from the assassination attempt when death’s bullet lay inches away in his chest. It was then that Reagan declared all the rest of his life was to be lived for God’s glory.

In these rededicated years, we all heard him speak—not the stilted necessary religious drivel so common to political climbers, but the steady course of a man who never forgot his roots in his mother’s home and God’s church.

At his funeral, 18 hymns were played or sung. Judging by the copyright dates, most all were sung in Reagan’s boyhood church.

On February 6, Reagan’s 100th birthday, honors come with ease. All who cherish honesty, transparency and genuine spirituality thank God for living in America, hearing him speak and enjoying the expansion of freedoms while he presided for two terms in the White House.

Maybe there is another obscure town like Tampico waiting to birth another like-minded leader who can be raised by a godly mother and nurtured in a biblical church to lead us in a troubled age. Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s friend, speechwriter and biographer, themed her book well. The title, When Character Was King, pretty much says it all.

Dave Virkler