Baptist Presidents

Connecting U. S. History and Baptist History: Baptist Presidents of the United States.

Thus far four men affiliated with Baptist churches have risen to become the President of the United States. Three were Democrats and one was a Republican. Two were northerners and two were southerners.[i]

1. Warren G. Harding (29th President. Republican from Ohio, 1921–23), Harding was a member and trustee of the Trinity Baptist Church, Marion, Ohio. He joined the church on May 6, 1883, when he was 17 years old and it was then still called the Free Baptist Church. Organized in 1824, Trinity was a Freewill or Free Baptist Church until joining the Northern Baptist Convention in 1911. Historians have generally ranked Harding as one of the worst Presidents. This is based on the idea that he accomplished little while in office, and for the corruption occurring during his administration – several of his appointees went to prison for various scandals. However, but I don’t think he was accused of improprieties beyond allowing it to go on.

2. Harry S. Truman (33rd President. Democrat from Missouri, 1945-1953), Truman is probably best known for following Franklin Delano Roosevelt, being plain-spoken, and authorizing dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. Some have called him a “cussin’ Baptist” (not an unique moniker). I know little about his presidency otherwise, or of his Baptist beliefs. At the age of 18, Truman was baptized at the Benton Boulevard Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was living at the time. In 1916 he later became a member of the First Baptist Church of Grandview, Missouri, (then called the Grandview Baptist Church). In 1945 Truman wrote, “I am a Baptist because I think that sect gives the common man the shortest and most direct approach to God.” (Source: Michael Devine, director of Harry S. Truman Library and Museum)

3. James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr. (39th President. Democrat from Georgia, 1977-1981). Carter is often remembered for speaking of being born-again (and by some for giving away the Panama Canal). His presidency is by many thought of as ineffective, and after one term the American people replaced him with Ronald Reagan. At the time of his presidency, he was a Southern Baptist, but his church is now also affiliated with the more liberal Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. He was a popular Sunday School teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church, Plains, Georgia. My in-laws once traveled to visit his Sunday School class. As a Baptist he would be considered on the liberal end of the spectrum. No questionable moral dealings or improprieties are associated with his presidency.

4. William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (42nd President. Democrat from Arkansas, 1993-2001). He was baptized by Park Place Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. One of the most remembered acts of this Southern Baptist president is the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. Though a Baptist, the president and his family attended the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. while he was president.

Honorable mention.

Abraham Lincoln was raised by Baptist parents. They were members of the Little Pigeon Baptist Church, near Lincoln City, Spencer County, Indiana. Lincoln himself, however, was never baptized nor a member of any church.

Baptist preacher John Gano is supposed to have baptized George Washington (1st President) during the Revolutionary War. This is a matter of controversy (i.e., some historians believe it happened and some do not). Two of John Gano’s grandchildren claimed in an affidavit that their aunt, John Gano’s oldest daughter, told them that her father had baptized Washington. Nevertheless, it seems that Washington remained outwardly affiliated with the Episcopal Church.

Information about all the presidents can be found at https://guides.loc.gov/presidents-portraits/chronological.

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[i] Missouri may best be considered a “border state” rather than “Northern.” However, I think Truman’s baptizing church may have been affiliated with the Northern Baptists. (This needs a more research; currently, First Baptist of Grandview is affiliated with Southern Baptist Convention.)

Dwight Eisenhower quotes

The following quotes are from Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower, U.S. General and 34th President of the United States.

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”

“The general limits of your freedom are merely these: that you do not trespass upon the equal rights of others.”

“It is only as we govern ourselves that we are well-governed.”

“Politics have become far too important to entrust to the politicians.”

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

“War is the deadly harvest of arrogant and unreasoning minds.”

News today

All 12 boys and soccer coach rescued from Thai cave

After more than two weeks trapped inside a cave complex in northern Thailand, all 12 boys and their soccer coach have finally been rescued.

The last four members of the youth soccer team and their coach were pulled out of the cave on Tuesday afternoon, the third day of a huge international operation to save them.

President Trump Nominates Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court

Age was an important factor in making Trump’s Supreme Court list; Kavanaugh is 53 years old, which would guarantee a measure of longevity on the court, if he is approved by Congress.

What you see

"What you see with me is what you get. I'm not running for president - George Bush is." -- Barbara Bush at the 1988 Republican National Convention

8 reasons why some Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump

A recent blog post by Southern Baptist pastor Peter Lumpkins explains eight reasons why he thinks many people identified as Evangelicals are voting for what one commenter who voted for him called (in quotes) a "misogynist, racist, sexual predator" conservative. I list and call attention to his eight reasons below.

1. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House threatens the future of the United States
2. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House forges the Supreme Court toward a Leftward direction for at least the next generation
3. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House seals the destruction of the 2nd Amendment
4. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House disassembles our Military and needlessly put our sons and daughters in harm's way
5. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House advances the culture of death, and in every conceivable way, pushes an abortion on demand and euthanasia agenda to extremes we've not experienced in the United States
6. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House continues a fatal attack on religious liberty and especially discriminates against conservative Christian beliefs and values in society generally and education particularly
7. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House increases socialized medicine by extending Obamacare's failed policies further into the lives of American citizens
8. Evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump because they're convinced a Clinton White House loosens even more the failed immigration laws we presently have so as to endanger the lives of American people by implementing more open border policies, offering mass amnesty for illegal immigrants, and through insufficient patrol, encourages terrorists to enter our borders by stealth.

Every evangelical will not agree with all 8 reasons -- I know some who make the decision for Trump based on only one. I call attention to this, even though many know I won't be voting for Trump, because (1) Christians who make this choice are railed against by other Christians as unchristian hypocrites, and (2) Peter has concisely explained why many have made this choice that is railed against by other Christians, including Evangelicals. 

Supreme Court nominee

A lot of energy has been expended jawing about filling the vacancy in the Supreme Court left by the death of Antonin Scalia (some of which began when his body was barely turning cold). The chief issue is whether a lame duck president should nominate a replacement (both theoretically and really). I heard someone on the radio today complain because the people don't get to choose the nominee (i.e., by the election process). Fact is, we do get to choose in the way the Constitution specifies -- we choose the President and Senate who choose the Supreme Justice. Some have used the rhetoric "let the people decide" in referring to letting the next elected president nominate a justice. The other side complains that it is the current president's right to nominate a justice. Both are right. The currently seated president has the constitutional right to set forth his candidate. But the Senate also has the constitutional right to "advise and consent" -- which included the right to not consent. 

I personally believe is it wise to wait. But whichever side we come down on, it is US who elected (or will elect) the officials who will nominate and confirm the next Supreme Court justice. Like it or not, we are part of the process.

Kasich's Kupkakes

Speaking at the University of Virginia, Ohio governor (and nondescript presidential candidate) John Kasich, weighed in (sort of) the issue of bakeries and homosexual couples, saying, "But if you're a cupcake maker and somebody wants a cupcake, make them a cupcake." Perhaps Kasich doesn't understand what is at issue, or perhaps he was just playing to the crowd (though no presidential candidate has ever done such heretofore). The issue that has been front and center is about not selling cupcakes (or other baked goods) to someone who walks in off the street, but decorating wedding cakes and such like for a homosexual ceremony, which draws the baker's ideas and creativity into contact with the viewpoint of the ceremony being conducted. Whether or not you agree with bakers who refuse to do so, one should fairly represent what is at issue. A candidate for president should be clear and honest about where he stands.

Presidential IQs

"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." -- President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's "Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere" on April 29, 1962

Constitutional Cruz control *

Laurence H. Tribe, constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, writes an interesting piece about his former student and presidential candidate, Ted Cruz. In it, his surmises that under Ted Cruz’s own logic, he’s ineligible for the White House. I think he makes a valid point, but while cruising around looking for trouble he might perhaps drink a little of his own tonic. The rich irony extends to not only Cruz's position, but Tribe's as well. Tribe "believes that the Constitution’s meaning evolves with the perceived needs of the time and longstanding practice." Surely he should not object to a little evolution in Cruz's constitutional interpretations. Ultimately, this is just one more political hack piece taking to task of someone whose politics one doesn't like. 


Take the following link to read what Thomas Sowell says about Messing With the Constitution.

* Titled "Constitutional Cruz control" when I first read it Tuesday morning

This day...

...in 1758

* 10 surprising birthday facts about President James Monroe -- "Monroe was one of the most dominant presidential candidates ever."

This day...1865

Abraham Lincoln died April 15, 1865. He was shot the night before on April 14, 1865, while attending the play called Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater. This was the first successful attempt to assassinate an American president. The event continues to capture the minds of the American people nearly 150 years later. The name John Wilkes Booth is well-known, but he had several co-conspirators and assassinations were also planned for Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Here's some reading you might find interesting:
* 10 odd facts about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination -- "Where was General Grant?"
* Abraham Lincoln's assassination -- "On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth...fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln...only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered...at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War."
* The forgotten man who almost became president after Lincoln -- "...if John Wilkes Booth’s plot were entirely successful, a little-known senator may have been thrust into the White House."
* Lincoln's Missing Bodyguard -- "What happened to Officer John Parker, the man who chose the wrong night to leave his post at Ford's Theater?"

Former president dies

Former U.S. president Gerald Ford has died