There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.
Read MoreRonald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911–2004) was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.
While doing research on a biography of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, a literary treasure was uncovered in 2018 by Washington Post columnist, Karen Tumulty. The discovery was, as Tumulty describes, an “intimate missive, four pages of White House stationery randomly tucked in a file.” In a September 14, 2018, column, Ms. Tumulty discusses the amazing letter dated August 7 (in 1982) from The White House.
The author of the letter was Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, who addressed the letter to his father-in-law, Loyal Davis, a pioneering neurosurgeon who was dying and “by most definitions of the word [was] an atheist.” Tumulty quotes Dr. Davis as once saying, “I have never been able to subscribe to the divinity of Jesus Christ nor his virgin birth. I don’t believe in the resurrection, or a heaven or hell as places.”
As professor Paul Kengor in God and Ronald Reagan a Spiritual Life (2004) says: “[Reagan] often wrote of Jesus Christ in private correspondence . . . and he wasn’t shy about Christian apologetics, frequently making the case for Christ” (127).
The following brief excerpt from the President’s 1982 letter to his father-in-law is a powerful example of Kengor’s observation about Reagan and apologetics. Tumulty describes it as manifesting “earnest intensity . . . an intimate, humble profession of faith.”
Read MoreI appreciate your taking the time and trouble to write as you did regarding my radio commentaries. It would seem, however, that we are epitomizing the theological debate I spoke of on the air.
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