A More Abundant Life FDR, The New Deal, and the Civil Religion

Jonathan Slonim

History of the American Identity Dr. Richard M. Gamble March 22, 2013

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This Nation is not merely a Nation of independence, but it is, if we are to survive, bound to be a Nation of interdependence--town and city, and North and South, East and West. That is our goal, and that goal will be understood by the people of this country no matter where they live.1 Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his first presidential campaign with these words in 1932 as he accepted the Democratic nomination. He would spend many of his future speeches as President seeking to bind the American people together. Like Woodrow Wilson and others before him, FDR turned to the civil religion to create a common religious foundation for America. He went beyond his predecessors, however, by making the New Deal economic policies a moral issue. The New Deal has been characterized as essentially economics- and utility-focused.2 While there is no doubt that a strong managerial spirit ran through the policies of the time, Roosevelt's rhetoric cast them in an unequivocally moral light. Though the 32nd President's personal faith was far from orthodox, Burns writes that "Probably no American politician has given so many speeches that were essentially sermons rather than statements of policy".3 What then, was the religion to which Roosevelt called America? A careful reading of his speeches--particularly his inaugural addresses--suggests that the god whom FDR invoked was only nominally Christian. While this in itself is not unique, since deists and unorthodox Christians have a long history in American politics, Roosevelt intensified the American civil religion in the New Deal. The civil religion had previously been largely Protestant.4 FDR brought a new level of ecumenicism to the presidency and to the nation, seeking through his words and actions to draw Americans together in a common religious
1

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago," July 2, 1932. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu
2

Ronald Isetti, Moneychangers of the Temple: FDR, American Civil Religion, and the New Deal, Presidential

Studies Quarterly, Vol 26. No. 3 (Summer 1996): 678.

3

James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and The Fox (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1956), 476. Richard Pierard and Robert D. Linder, Civil Religion and the Presidency (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 171.

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pursuit. FDR was the prophet, at times even the Christ, of this newly broadened civil religion, and the New Deal was the sacred rite, the faithful practice of which would finally achieve "peace on earth." To understand the significance of FDR's political rhetoric, it is important to first look at his personal beliefs. Born in 1882 in Hyde Park to Episcopalian Vestryman James Roosevelt, Franklin grew up surrounded by high church liturgy and scripture. His mother Sara had been Unitarian, but joined the Episcopal church when she married James. Even more than his family, Franklin's Groton headmaster, Endicott Peabody, had an enormous spiritual influence on the young man, and young Roosevelt even played the organ in worship services while at school.5 All of this religious training imparted primarily moral teaching to Franklin. Peabody himself cared very little for matters of doctrine. Rather, he taught the boys at his boarding school to appreciate and follow the moral teachings of the Bible. Roosevelt greatly appreciated this religious education, and wrote in a letter to Peabody, "I count it among the blessings of my life that it was given me in formative years to have the privilege of your guiding hand and benefit of your inspiring example."6 As an adult, Roosevelt followed in his father's footsteps and became a vestryman at St. James' Episcopal Church. Despite this, he rarely attended church, and as president wrote that he preferred a "very low church" kind of worship, such as the Methodists and Baptists practiced. His "was a very simple religion. He believed in God and in His guidance," his wife Eleanore wrote. When she asked him about the possibility that the teachings of the church were not true, he answered, "I really never thought about it. I think it is just as well not to think about things like that

Gary Scott Smith, Religion and the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in Religion and the American Presidency, ed. Gastn Espinosa, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 186-189.
5 6

Pierard and Linder, Civil Religion, 164.

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too much."7 This very loose form of Christianity fit snugly in a nation that was losing much of its Protestant heritage; but it still allowed him to call upon the religious sensibilities of the nation without apparent hypocrisy.8 Another of Roosevelt's practices that helped to keep him above the fray of denominational strife was that he rarely mentioned his faith, even to his closest friends and family. By keeping his personal beliefs to himself, he ensured that his convictions would be less liable to blame or controversy.9 Thus particularly well-suited to the religious tenor of the times, Roosevelt was able to strengthen the civil religion's hold on American thought and action. The American civil religion was nothing new when Roosevelt became president. Cynthia Toolin argues that it has been a substantial feature in every presidential inaugural address since Washington's first. Citing Robert Bellah, she says that "the presence of American civil religion, as found in the presidential inaugural addresses, performs the three functions of culture building, culture affirmation, and, most importantly, legitimation of international and domestic actions."10 How then did Roosevelt's speeches (inaugural or otherwise) go about building that religion, and toward what or whom was it directed? A common theme in FDR's religious rhetoric was a subtle transfer of meaning within biblical passages. Passages that referred originally to Christ refer now to America, Democracy, or FDR himself. FDR often prayed to God in contexts surrounding his speeches, especially his inaugural addresses, but the god whom he references nearly every time he quotes scripture refers to the United States of America, Democracy, or the New Deal itself.

Ibid. 169-170. Phillip E. Hammond, In Search of a Protestant Twentieth Century: American Religion and Power Since 1900,

Review of Religious Research 24.4, (June 1983): 286. Hammond explains thoroughly in this essay that by 1920,
America had lost most of its protestant identity. My argument is that Roosevelt took this opportunity to reorient the American civil religion.
9

Smith, Religion and Roosevelt, 190. Cynthia Toolin, American Civil Religion from 1789-1981: A Content Analysis of Presidential Inaugural Addresses,

10

Review of Religious Research, 25.1 (September 1983): 45.

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He began this trend before he even became President. In his first nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1932, Roosevelt said, "many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon . . . To return to higher standards we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing."11 Who are these false prophets of Mammon? They are the Republican Party. But the clear biblical reference here is Matthew 6:24: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." There are two options provided: God, or Mammon. By mentioning only Mammon, FDR leaves another option. What or whom would he have us worship? The only alternative we are given is found in the last line of the speech: "I pledge myself to a new deal for the American People." This, he says, is not a political campaign, but "a crusade to restore America to its own people." Even before his election, and even in one of the more technical and economicallyfocused speeches he would give, FDR used biblical references. And it was not the God of the Bible to whom would have the people turn, but the New Deal. Nothing changed on the first day of his presidency. The First Inaugural explained that "We are stricken by no plague of locusts." Rather, the failure of the economy was due to "practices of the unscrupulous money changers." In other words, the economic woes were not a punishment but simply the consequences of following the unscrupulous Republican policies. He won the election, and at last, "The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths." Here he equated his election with Jesus driving the money changers out of the Temple of God. And if Jesus drove them out to restore the Temple to worshiping God, what were the ancient truths that FDR called upon? "Social values," he said, would restore the nation to its former glory, and he (or perhaps the united people), as Jesus, would lead that restoration. In the succeeding paragraph, Roosevelt stated that "our true destiny is
11

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago," July 2, 1932. The American Presidency Project..

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not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men." Once again, he refers to himself and his listeners in a biblical reference to Jesus: "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."12 FDR concluded his Second Inaugural calling on God to help him "give light to them that sit in darkness and to guide our feet into the way of peace."13 These words, taken directly from Zachariah's prayer over Jesus in Luke 1:79, once again transpose words from Jesus to Roosevelt and the American people, continuing to secularize salvation. Isetti points out this very phrase, writing, By quoting from this prayer, the president was able . . . to identify his administration with the peace and happiness of messianic times.1415 FDR put himself in the position of Jesus here and other places through a careful use of pronouns in his Scripture references, making himself and the New Deal the center of the civil religion. This positioning as a successor of Christ would help to substantiate K.C. O'Leary's claim that the New Deal was the enactment of Herbert Croly's cry for a strong central government and the creation of a national community.16 Croly wrote in The Promise of American

Life that a national community would need "some democratic evangelist,--some imitator of Jesus
who will reveal to men the path whereby they may enter into possession of their individual and social achievements, and immeasurably increase them by virtue of personal regeneration."17

12

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Inaugural Address," March 4, 1933. The American Presidency Project. Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Inaugural Address," January 20, 1937. The American Presidency Project. Isetti, Moneychangers, 683.

13

14

15

Gary Smith refers to this same passage, but he misses the point entirely when he says that the Prophet of Hyde Park [was] their latter-day Moses. In other places, Roosevelt did refer to t he Exodus, but this reference is very clearly to Christ (Religion and the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, 193).
16

K. C. O'Leary, Herbert Croly & Progressive Democracy. Polity. 26.4, (1994): 533-552.

Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1914) 453-454. While FDR does not reference Croly directly, OLeary and others have suggested that the New Deal, consciously or not, was the enactment of Crolys philosophy. It is ultimately immaterial to my argument whether FDR consciously followed Croly,
17

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Roosevelt filled this role in America, uniting the people behind his leadership in the crusade for a better economic situation. As President and leader of the civil religion, Roosevelt made a point to include the clergy in much of his work. In the first year of his presidency alone, he addressed the Hyde Park Methodist Episcopal Church, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, and the National Conference of Catholic Churches. These addresses all shared a similar tone, asking the churches to support the New Deals programs. In 1935, Roosevelt sent a letter to about 200,000 clergy, asking them for their opinion on the New Deal policies he had enacted. Again, he was seeking to gain church support, though in a sense he was supplanting the role of provider to the poor that churches had long held. Throughout his communication with churches and other local bodies, Roosevelt walked a fine line between federalism and nationalism. He said that "the Federal Government cannot, and does not intend to, take over the whole job. Many times we have insisted that every community and every State must first do its share."18 At the same time, the Federal Government had "inaugurated new measures of relief on a vast scale," and this was the proper work of an enlightened Federal Government. The increased relief measures, combined with the language he used in addressing churches, suggests that FDR was creating a national church which would subsume all local and denominational differences. In his letter to the clergy, FDR reiterated a point that he made over and over throughout his speeches: The central government could not manage communities by itself. It needed the

since this is an analysis of how his rhetoric shaped the civil religion. Crolys words are merely evidence that the religious rhetoric FDR used was consistent with this idea of the civil religion.
18

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Address to the National Conference of Catholic Charities.," October 4, 1933. The American

Presidency Project..

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support of local communities, churches, and private organizations.19 This was similarly the theme of his speeches to church groups. In speaking to the Hyde Park Methodist Episcopal Church, asked, "Have the people in this community done their share?" This was not a spiritual issue, but a very tangible question: had sufficient taxes been paid, were there sufficient relief efforts in place for the poor? In short, he wanted to know if the community had been able to solve its economic problems through neighborly involvement. If that had been insufficient, he asked, then had the state stepped in and done its share? Only at that point would relief efforts by the Federal Government kick in.20 "The churches are doing their share," he declared, assuring the churches that the central government would be coming to the rescue.21 These speeches gave FDR and his New Deal a new and important role in the religious life of America. The statement above implied that he had the authority to put his stamp of approval on churches. Roosevelt chose to place himself, as the head of a civil religion, above the churches. His letter to clergy said, "We can solve our many problems, but no one man or single group can do it,--we shall have to work together for the common end of better spiritual and material conditions for the American people."22 While this letter sounds in some ways like a humble request for advice, when combined with his other speeches, it appears in a slightly different light. FDR sought to unite all churches with a common goal: improvement of society. The final lines of this speech read:

19

Letter quoted in Monroe Billington and Cal Clark, Clergy Opinion and the New Deal: The State of Washington as a Case Study, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 81.3 (July 1990): 96.
20

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Extemporaneous Address at the Hyde Park Methodist Episcopal Church," September 29, 1933. The American Presidency Project.
21

Ibid. Billington and Clark, Clergy Opinion, 96.

22

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The problems which we all facethe problems of so-called economics, the problems that are called monetary problems, the problems of unemployment, the problems of industry and agriculturewe shall not succeed in solving unless the people of this country hold the spiritual values of the country just as high as they do the economic values.23 Roosevelt closed his speech to the Episcopalian Church by explaining that the real problem facing America was spiritual. By casting the economic struggles of the United States as spiritual, he sought to unite churches of all denominations behind him in attacking the problems facing America. This attempt was generally successful. The large majority of clergy supported Roosevelt and the New Deal, though any given policy initiative of the New Deal often met with substantial opposition.24 That clergy supported Roosevelt so readily without supporting his specific policies suggests that he had successfully united them around a spiritual vision that transcended practical concerns. In his speech to the Federal Council of Churches of Christ, FDR declared the goal that he and the churches would pursue together. "That human agency which we call government is seeking through social and economic means the same goal which the churches are seeking through social and spiritual means. . . 'a more abundant life.'"25 This is nearly a direct quote of Jesus in John 10:10: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."26 While he claims that the government is seeking this goal through social and economic means, compared to the social and spiritual means of the church, the distinction does not seem to hold up in his rhetoric. If the New Deal is directed toward the same kind of abundant life that Christ sought to give to humanity, then there is already no meaningful distinction between "spiritual" and
23

Roosevelt, Episcopal Address. Billington and Clark, Clergy Opinion, 97. Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Address before the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America," December 6, 1933.

24

25

The American Presidency Project.

26

All Bible references are to the King James Version.

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"economic." In his speech to the Episcopalian Church, quoted above, he said that the economic problems of America could not be solved except spiritually. While creating a nominal barrier between church and state in this speech, FDR substantially united the two through his rhetoric, placing himself at the head of a spiritual nation. A religion cannot be simply positive; it must also fight against something. Roosevelt recognized that, and told the Churches of Christ "The early Christians challenged the pagan ethics of Greece and of Rome; we are wholly ready to challenge the pagan ethics that are represented in many phases of our boasted modern civilization." The Church of the New Deal would have to contest as strongly with "pagan ethics" as the early Church had with Greek and Roman culture. What were those pagan ethics? FDR made no hesitation: they were the entrenched class distinctions, against which "the early churches were united in a social ideal." By re-writing Church history to be purely social, FDR made it possible for churches to join him as supporters of his New Deal, not just politically, but spiritually as well. Lest there be any concern about this, he assured them that Government and church operate in completely separate spheres. However, "Government can ask the churches to stress in their teaching the ideals of social justice, while at the same time government guarantees to the churches--Gentile and Jewishthe right to worship God in their own way." Only if they worked together under Roosevelt's leadership could church and government successfully solve the ills of the nation. But if they succeeded: "From the bottom of my heart I believe that this beloved country of ours is entering upon a time of great gain." Here again, he quoted the Bible, this time 1 Timothy 6:6: "But godliness with contentment is great gain." Support for the New Deal's social policies was equated with godliness, and "great gain" he gave to mean economic prosperity. Turning to the Bible and transposing select passages to refer to his policies, FDR called righteous churches to follow him as their spiritual leader.

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While neither the social gospel nor the use of the Bully Pulpit of the presidency to preach it was new, FDR did bring a new degree of ecumenicism to the civil religion. "The United States was no longer culturally a Protestant--let alone evangelical--nation, but one in which all faiths were to have a part."27 Cognizant that he needed the support of Catholics as well as Protestants in his civil religion, he maintained extremely good relations with Catholic leaders in America. In October of 1933, Roosevelt addressed the Conference of Catholic Charities, encouraging them in the work they had been doing. Because of the interest they had taken in serving the poor, he believed that "God is marching on."28 Taking this quote from the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Julia Ward Howe and applying it to Catholics was a new thing. Never before had Catholicism been fully included under the umbrella of the American civil religion--one which had been predominantly Protestant. However, by accepting Catholic Americans as a part of the great work of the New Deal, FDR both broadened his support base and set himself up as the spiritual leader of all Americans, regardless of religious creed. Theology didnt matter as long as churches were doing the good work of the New Deal. In his speech to the Catholic Charities, the President reiterated the goal to which church and state would aim, this time emphasizing a "spirit of neighborliness." The citizens of the United States were to consider themselves neighbors and "work together for the public welfare and for the success of a broad national program of recovery." A broad national program did not have to be impersonal, and if all Americans felt that they were neighbors and part of the same congregation, they could work together and succeed. To encourage his Catholic audience in this pursuit, Roosevelt reminded them that "Men cannot live unto themselves alone,"29 nearly quoting 2
27

Pierard and Linder, Civil Religion, 163. Roosevelt, Address to Catholic Charities. Ibid.

28

29

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Corinthians 5:15, which reads: "He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." The context of the speech suggests that this quote was by no means coincidence. Rather, in a speech primarily about social responsibility and private charity, FDR directed the spiritual aims of the church toward national goals. Rather than living unto "him which died," his audience was called to live in a "spirit of neighborliness." The neighborliness, of course, was made possible through the machinations of the Federal Government and by uniting with FDR, the great religious leader of the nation, in his social policies. Again, the transposition of carefully chosen Scriptures put the New Deal squarely in front of a national religion that would supersede all denominational and theological bickering. At first glance, speeches like this one appear to contradict the common notion that Roosevelt absorbed the roles of state, local, and private charity into the Federal Government. "There are . . . vital reasons for the maintenance of the efforts of the churches and other nongovernmental groups in every part of the land,"30 Roosevelt said. Government on a large scale could not have the close contact with individuals necessary for successful implementation of real social reform, nor could purely temporal salves cure the problem. Churches, FDR explained, played a crucial and irreplaceable role in the improvement of society toward "the greatest good for the greatest number." 31 However, through utilitarian language such as this, FDR again and again equated social, spiritual, and economic values. The government might not, in theory, have the same spiritual capacity as the churches, but his language united them in a National Church that essentially did have that capacity. Thus he was able to sincerely say, "Not for a moment have I doubted that we would climb out of the valley of gloom. Always I have been certain that we would

30

Ibid. Ibid.

31

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conquer, because the spirit of America springs from faithfaith in the beloved institutions of our land, and a true and abiding faith in the divine guidance of God." Church and state, united as one spiritual institution, would fear no evil, because they could climb out of the valley of gloom, as long as they maintained faith in institutions and in God. The "beloved institutions" got much more emphasis than God in this and other speeches. America, a church unto itself, could unite churches of every denomination--Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish--in the quest for "a more abundant life." It appears from the above evidence that FDR carefully crafted his speeches to situate the New Deal at the center of the civil religion. It is easy here to get carried away, but that alone does not explain all of the presidents rhetoric. If Roosevelt saw himself as an "imitator of Jesus," and the New Deal nearly as a god, what was the significance of the tremendous pomp surrounding his inaugurations? His first address was preceded by a special church service, led by his old mentor Endicott Peabody, as was each successive inauguration. At his second ceremony, Roosevelt began the tradition, imitated by every subsequent president, of having an invocation read by one or more members of the clergy. This certainly shows the importance that he placed on public religious observance, but it does not fit neatly with an idea that Roosevelt instituted a new national religion around the New Deal. A more benign and more significant theory is that Roosevelt was not changing anything in the substance of the civil religion, but rather making it more inclusive and then applying it directly to his times. This fits in well with Martin Marty's and Phillip Hammond's argument that "From the 1880s to World War I the mainline Protestants saw much of their intellectual leadership adopt various versions of the new theology and much of their reformist passion shaped into a new social gospel."32 Christianity was already a primarily social gospel, and the church was seeking to do its work in the world through secular means and in conjunction with

32

Hammond, In Search, 283.

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secular society.33 In this milieu, Roosevelt recognized and seized an opportunity to unite American church-goers, Protestant and Catholic, under a single social gospel message. So he had two invocations at his Second Inaugural: one Protestant and one Catholic. His relationship with churches was not limited to one denomination or another, but sought to center both of them on the old social gospel newly personified in the New Deal. This theory is borne out in the rest of the inaugural addresses. In the Second, Roosevelt reiterated his old theme of driving the moneychangers from the temple, and laid out his plan for continuing the success of his first administration. This concludes with an invocation of "Divine guidance" to help FDR and his followers to "give light to them that sit in darkness and to guide our feet into the way of peace."34 In the Third Inaugural, FDR quotes "words of prophecy spoken by our first President." The words he quotes about "the sacred fire of liberty" are the first instance of a president invoking the civil religion in America. Toolin lists invocations of George Washington as one of the hallmarks of the civil religion in America, and FDR's citing of the first prophet of that civil religion fits in well with the traditional civic religion.35 Not only was the newly specific civil religion prominent in FDR's inaugural addresses, but it was also apparent in his everyday speeches. In October of 1936 he gave a speech at Madison Square Gardens in which he called "peace on earth, good will toward men" the message of democracy. "Above our political forums [and] market places stand the altars of our faith--altars on which burn the fires of devotion that maintain all that is best in us and [in] our nation."36 He closed

33

Ibid, 284. Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Inaugural Address," 1937. Toolin, American Civil Religion, 43. Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Address at Madison Square Garden, New York City," October 31, 1936. The American

34

35

36

Presidency Project.

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his speech with Micah 6:8: "What doth the Lord require of thee--but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." Just as in his inaugurals, in this speech FDR transposed the messianic message to his ideology. Erecting an altar to democracy, he led the country in devotion to a social ideal. This language was ubiquitous throughout his presidency. Perhaps the most significant part of this unifying civil religion is who were left out. And they were many. In the 1932 campaign, it was President Hoover and the Republicans. In the First and Second Inaugurals it was the bankers, the rich, and the greedy. By his third election campaign in 1940, evil was beginning to become an outside force, but there were many Americans who, because of their lack of faith, would be termed outsiders. Religion is not just about good. It is a story of good versus evil, and without an evil to fight it would be very hard to hold a religious group together for long. Throughout his presidency, FDR crafted a narrative of the civil religion in which there was no room for dissent. The Hoover Republicans were his first target. In a campaign speech about prohibition, he pulled out all the stops: In June, the Republican Oracle sat in Chicago. There was a fume of heated oratory; clouds of Prohibition proposals were emitted; the Resolutions Committee and the Convention itself succumbed to the stupefying influence. It uttered words in the party platform words and more words, till meaning was lost and reason slumbered. And then when the Convention ended and the people asked the high priests of the party what it all meant, the answers were so diverse that one was tempted to suspect the worst that it meant nothing at all.37 He compared the Republicans to the pagan oracle at Delphi. They were not just wrong-they were evil. And because of their pagan politics, they were also not American. "Public opinion, moved by a true American admiration for brave and honest statement . . . liked the Democratic

37

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Campaign Address on Prohibition in Sea Girt, New Jersey," August 27, 1932. The American

Presidency Project.

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platform . . . This must have been disturbing to the high priests of the Republican Party." Over and over in this speech he used the phrase "true American." If you were not with FDR, you were against FDR, and you could not be a true American. Members of the Republican Party, because of their political shenanigans, were not allowed into the American civil religion--into the temple of democracy. He lumped them with the outsiders. "Outsider" garnered an entirely new meaning with the outbreak of World War II. While it was still just a European war, Roosevelt made it clear that he would do whatever it took to keep foreign powers out of the "Republics in which [we] live and move and have [our] being."38 The "democratic faith" would keep pressing onward and upward, and would defend itself against any outsiders. Like Paul in Athens, he made it clear that American democracy is the true religion that the rest of the world was still looking for. But he also made it clear that not everyone in America was American. In November of 1940 he said, "There are certain forces within our own national community, composed of men who call themselves American but who would destroy America. . .In this election all the representatives of those forces, without exception, are voting against the New Deal."39 If the people had any doubt as to what constituted true Americanism, FDR would explain to them that the New Deal would be the line of demarcation. By making the New Deal the central symbol of the civil religion, FDR cast his political opponents as godless pagans and as enemies of America. In a fireside chat, the president put the finishing touches on his "moneychangers in the temple" theme: "How are we constructing the edifice of recoverythe temple which, when completed, will no longer be a temple of money changers or of beggars, but rather a temple dedicated to and maintained for a greater social justice,
38

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Address on Hemisphere Defense, Dayton, Ohio.," October 12, 1940,The American

Presidency Project.
39

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Campaign Address at Cleveland, Ohio.," November 2, 1940, The American Presidency

Project.

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a greater welfare for Americathe habitation of a sound economic life?"40 The temple of America was dedicated to a sound economic life. The moneychangers or those who would make beggars of their fellow citizens had no part in it. It was not their temple, but the temple of right economics. What would become of the heretics, the pagans, the outsiders? Roosevelt never said, but he made it no secret that they were not welcome in the Americathe religionwhich the New Deal was defining. When he accepted his nomination to be the Democratic candidate in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt made a pledge to himself and to the American people. "Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage." As chief priest and the latest prophet of the American religion, FDR took it upon himself to redefine categories in the civil religion to center on his own agenda. The New Deal was the ultimate article of devotion. Those who were on his side were prophets with him, ushering in a new enlightened order of "the greatest good to the greatest number." Those who still sought after Mammon--material gain for themselves--were the false priests of a pagan religion and defilers of the temple of democracy. "Probably no American politician has given so many speeches that were effectively sermons," Burns wrote. He argues that Roosevelt's speeches were intended to teach and instruct the people in moral living. That may be, but they were also carefully crafted to make politics into a moral and religious crusade against evil. By uniting Americans of every religious creed behind a newly ecumenical civil religion with the New Deal at its center, FDR made specifics of theology irrelevant. Embracing the social gospel with a new fervor, he brought all of the symbols, language, and passion of religion to bear against the outsiders--his Republican opponents. "I want to be a

40

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Fireside Chat.," October 22, 1933. The American Presidency Project.

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preaching president,"41 Franklin Roosevelt once said. And so he preached, crusading tirelessly for the democratic faith worked out in the New Deal.

41

Robert Underhill, The Rise and Fall of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (New York: Algora Publishing, 2012): 41.

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Bibliography

Billington, Monroe and Clark, Cal. Clergy Opinion and the New Deal: The State of Washington as a Case Study. The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 81.3 (July 1990): 96-100. Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt: The Lion and The Fox. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1956. Croly, Herbert. The Promise of American Life. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1914. Hammond, Phillip E.. In Search of a Protestant Twentieth Century: American Religion and Power Since 1900. Review of Religious Research 24.4 (June 1983): 281-294. Isetti, Ronald. Moneychangers of the Temple: FDR, American Civil Religion, and the New Deal, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 26.3 (1996): 678-693. O'Leary, K. C. Herbert Croly & Progressive Democracy. Polity 26.4 (1994): 533-552. Peters, Gerard and Woolley, John T., eds. The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu Pierard, Richard and Linder, Robert D. Civil Religion and the Presidency. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988. Smith, Gary Scott. Religion and the Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. in Religion and the American Presidency, edited by Gastn Espinosa. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Toolin, Cynthia. American Civil Religion from 1789-1981: A Content Analysis of Presidential Inaugural Addresses. Review of Religious Research 25.1 (September 1983): 39-48. Underhill, Robert. The Rise and Fall of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, New York: Algora Publishing, 2012.