10-19-15<\/p>\n
Later this month we will observe the 157th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s birth. One of the greatest presidents of the United States; the \u201cMost Interesting American\u201d; and, often forgotten, one of the most devout and observant Christians to have served as Chief Executive.<\/p>\n
TR frequently quoted Bible verses (and titled two of his approximately 50 books from Biblical passages); he volunteered to teach Sunday School while a student at Harvard; he often delivered impromptu sermons when requested at churches he visited (and seldom missed Sunday worship throughout his life, whether in the wild west or in the White House); and, despite higher-profile and more lucrative offers after he retired from the presidency, he became Contributing Editor of The Outlook, a modest weekly Christian opinion journal.<\/p>\n
His faith, of course, was \u201cmanly,\u201d in the parlance of an earlier age \u2013 bold, unapologetic, encouraging. He once said, in an address to the newly formed Gideon Band: \u201cThe Christianity that counts is the kind that is carried into a man\u2019s life. The man who does ordinary work well is working for the Lord. I do not like to see a slack man\u2026. If you do not find in a man any outward manifestations of the Spirit, I am inclined to doubt if it ever has been in him. I like to see fruits\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
In the same manner he also spoke at a church dedication: \u201cIn business and in work, if you let Christianity stop as you go out of the church door, there is little righteousness in you. You must behave to your fellowmen as you would have them behave to you. You must have pride in your work if you would succeed. A man should get justice for himself, but he should also do justice to others. Help a man to help himself, but do not expend all your efforts in helping a man who will not help himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s favorite Bible verse was Micah 6:8 \u2013 \u201cHe has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine this today, but in 1917 Roosevelt wrote an article for the Ladies\u2019 Home Journal<\/span> magazine, and the subject was \u201c10 Reasons Men Should Go To Church.\u201d Imagine a president of our time writing for magazines as diverse as Ladies\u2019 Home Journal, The Outlook (and National Geographic and the children\u2019s magazine St Nicholas and The American Historical Review and Cosmopolitan and The New York Times and American Museum Journal<\/span> and\u2026). And imagine a president today exclaiming Christian faith. Frequently. But to TR every venue was a pulpit, and a bully one at that.<\/p>\n Words for then, words for now: here is his article on Why men should attend church.<\/p>\n In the actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid downgrade.<\/p>\n Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling some responsibility for others and the sense of braced moral strength,\u00a0which prevents a relaxation of one\u2019s own moral fiber.<\/p>\n There are enough holidays for most of us\u00a0that\u00a0can quite properly be devoted to pure holiday making.\u00a0Sundays differ from other holidays, among other ways,\u00a0in the fact that there are\u00a052 of them every year.\u00a0On Sunday, go to church.<\/p>\n Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator and dedicate oneself to good living in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in one\u2019s own house, just as well as in church. But I also know as a matter of cold fact the average man does not thus worship or thus dedicate himself. If he strays from church,\u00a0he does not spend his time in good works or lofty meditation. He looks over the colored supplement of the newspaper.<\/p>\n He may not hear a good sermon at church. But unless he is very unfortunate,\u00a0he will hear a sermon by a good man who, with his good wife, is engaged all the week long in a series of wearing, humdrum, and important tasks for making hard lives a little easier.<\/p>\n He will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible. And if he is not familiar with the Bible, he has suffered a loss.<\/p>\n He will probably take part in singing some good hymns.<\/p>\n He will meet and\u00a0nod to, or speak to, good quiet neighbors.\u00a0He will come away feeling a little more charitably toward all the world, even toward those excessively foolish young men who regard churchgoing as rather a soft performance.<\/p>\n I advocate a man\u2019s joining in church works for the sake of showing his faith by his works.<\/p>\n The man who does not in some way, active or not, connect himself with some active, working church misses many opportunities for helping his neighbors, and therefore, incidentally, for helping himself.<\/p>\n Think about Theodore Roosevelt on October 27\u2026 and then think about the things one of our greats president thought about!<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n Judy Collins and the Boy\u2019s Choir of Harlem, at the U S Capitol:<\/p>\n