This essay is by Christina Pan. Christina is Georgetown student who served as an intern to FGC in 2024. This essay shows the opinions of the author only. It does not represent view of FGC or Georgetown University

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America has a historically contradictory relationship with religion. Though the American government is explicitly secular, it is notable to observe how religion impacts America’s social and political realities, from the inscription of “In God We Trust” in federally-produced currency and embedded within our constitution. More notable is that the American government’s claims to secularism and a separation of church and state, the majority of Americans favor Protestant Presidents, with over half of Presidents belonging to the Episcopalian or Presbyterian church, two Catholic Presidents, three Presidents not directly affiliated with a particular religious faith, and most interestingly, two Presidents belonging to the Quaker faith: Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.

Though Nixon was raised as a Quaker, he did not explicitly follow the faith traditions throughout his life. Instead, he saw religion as largely a possible force for societal impact, whether that be — as historians debate — for political tool or force for public service.

In Nixon’s First Cover-Up: The Religious Life of a Quaker President, by Larry Ingle, he asserts that Nixon was a ranter, or otherwise known as an individual who renounces God and lives by the spiritual doctrines of their own religion. Ingle writes that Nixon “held that God’s salvation had freed them from human-created restrictions and that they hence were not bound by any kind of outward laws, rules, and regulations, as ordinary people were. They were accordingly free to do as they pleased, limited only by their own wills” (6).

There are interesting echoes of Quaker faith throughout Nixon’s career. Though he never directly spoke of the Inner Light, he went about it in a generally roundabout way. From Nixon’s parting resignation speech: “And I say to each and every one of you, not only will we always remember you, but always you will be in our hearts, and you will be in our prayers. And only then will you find what we Quakers call ‘peace at the center.’”

Ingle holds that at the center of Nixon’s faith, instead of ‘peace at the center,’ as a ranter, Nixon’s center was a desire for power and influence. Some aspects of Nixon’s presidency — including his aggressive views on war, obsession with what he viewed as “strong” historical figures, including the ranks of conquerors, and general vindictiveness — go directly against his religious heritage and attempt at moral leadership. Many Americans, too, remember Nixon primarily from the Watergate scandal rather than the political legacy that preceded it. Not many remember the end of the wage draft, the bloody end to conflict in Vietnam, the improvement of U.S.S.R-China relations, or most importantly, the religious undertone of many of Nixon’s major decisions.

Whether or not Nixon’s intentions with religion were spiritual in nature or more politically motivated, America observed some changes as a direct influence of Nixon’s Quaker faith. Some historians argue that Nixon did not explicitly broadcast his political identity constrained to one specific faith. Rather, he seemed to engage in a sense of “evangelical tokenism,” or in layman’s terms, leading America with an example of being in “good faith.” For example, Nixon was the first president to hold religious services at the White House, and under his attempted moral leadership, encouraged Protestants and Catholics alike to hold true to their faith regardless of modernizing society.

Ironically, perhaps, the Watergate scandal eventually led to the opposite effect of what Nixon intended through his moral leadership. Post-Watergate America became relatively spiritually cynical and impoverished, noticing that a nation under God and a similarly spiritually involved President could still move a country towards the wrong side of things. However, like the majority of times in history, the American perspective quickly shifted, following the succession of more Christian Presidents. What is most interesting to note here is how the very moral and spiritual makeup of a nation can be so easily influenced by the figurehead at its forefront.

Sources

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/01/15/the-religious-affiliations-of-us-presidents/
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/
https://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/god-in-the-white-house/
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5933&context=etd

Nixon’s First Cover-Up: The Religious Life of a Quaker President, by Larry Ingle