Central to the American experience since the founding has been a faith in the God of the Bible.
Leaders throughout U.S. history have appealed to a belief in God’s governance over the affairs of this world and in the ideals of a Christian civilization to inspire and fortify Americans.
This was certainly true in World War II — but first, a little background to lay the foundation these leaders stood upon.
The nation’s founding charter — the Declaration of Independence — explained that the purpose of the government, as revealed in the “laws of nature and nature’s God,” is to secure the people’s God-given rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The laws of nature are those that are immutable self-evident truths observable in creation, while the laws of nature’s God are revealed in the Bible.
The 56 signers of the declaration from the newly declared free 13 United States of America professed their “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence,” pledging “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” in the cause of liberty.
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Providence — the belief that God governs over the affairs of this world — is a basic tenet of Christianity.
Even Benjamin Franklin, among the least traditionally Christian of the Founders, would tell you the God of the Bible is whose aid they sought during the Revolutionary War. He helped draft the declaration, along with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the primary author.
Following the war, at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the delegates were at loggerheads with each other about what form the new government should take. Franklin called for a Christian minister to be brought in to lead the delegates in praying for wisdom and guidance on how to proceed.
He noted that during the Revolution, the Continental Congress held prayers daily for divine protection. “Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor,” Franklin said.
He made multiple scriptural references during his remarks. One example: “We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that ‘except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without [H]is concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel.”
Among George Washington’s earliest acts as president in 1789 was setting aside a national day of thanksgiving to God.
That’s just a taste of the nation’s faith heritage, which I go into much more detail in my book, “We Hold These Truths.” Now on to the leaders of World War II.
Prior to America entering the war in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt declared a national emergency in May as the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan advanced across Europe and Asia and across the seas, putting U.S. security in peril.
By that point, the Germans had seized much of Western Europe and stood on the doorstep of Great Britain across the English Channel, while Japan had taken over large portions of China.
Prior to the outbreak of the Battle of Britain in June 1940 in the skies of the island nation, Prime Minister Winston Churchill laid out the stakes in his famous “Finest Hour” speech, declaring, “Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.”
“If we can stand up to [German dictator Adolf Hitler], all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands,” Churchill continued. “But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
Roosevelt shared this sentiment in a radio address to Americans in May 1941, saying, “Today the whole world is divided between human slavery and human freedom — between pagan brutality and the Christian ideal. We choose human freedom — which is the Christian ideal. No one of us can waver for a moment in his courage or his faith. We will not accept a Hitler-dominated world.”
“We reassert our abiding faith in the vitality of our constitutional Republic as a perpetual home of freedom, of tolerance, and of devotion to the word of God,” FDR said.
He concluded, “I repeat the words of the signers of the Declaration of Independence — that little band of patriots, fighting long ago against overwhelming odds, but certain, as we are now, of ultimate victory: ‘With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’”
After America’s entry into the war following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Roosevelt again addressed the nation as part of a radio broadcast titled “We Hold These Truths.”
The broadcast corresponded with the 150th Anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791.
The president noted that the Bill of Rights, which enshrined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence into law, had been accepted by much of the world by the 1940s, but not so with the leaders of the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy.
“The truths which were self-evident to Thomas Jefferson which have been self-evident to the six generations of Americans who followed him — were to these men hateful,” he said.
#OTD 1941, FDR gave a radio address on 150th anniversary of ratification of Bill of Rights. https://t.co/gtcOOJy5nk pic.twitter.com/y4RPlGlibs
— Presidential Trivia (@triviapotus) December 15, 2015
“The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness which seemed to the Founders of the republic, and which seem to us, inalienable, were, to Hitler and his fellows, empty words which they proposed to cancel forever,” Roosevelt said.
He explained that in Nazi Germany, a citizen’s only duty “is the duty of obedience, not to his God, not to his conscience, but to Adolf Hitler; and that his only value is his value, not as a man, but as a unit of the Nazi state.”
“To Hitler, the church, as we conceive it, is a monstrosity to be destroyed by every means at his command. The Nazi church is to be the ‘National Church,’ a pagan church, absolutely and exclusively in the service of but one doctrine, one race, one nation,” FDR said.
Following the Allied D-Day invasion of France on June 6, 1944, to begin to retake western Europe from the Nazis, Roosevelt addressed Americans by radio that night.
“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity,” the president began.
He concluded, using the words of Jesus Christ from the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done, Almighty God.”
Roosevelt wasn’t the only leader calling for prayer on D-Day. Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his “order of the day,” wrote to his soldiers from the United States, Great Britain and Canada, “The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”
“Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking,” Ike concluded.
“Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely … I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.” -Dwight Eisenhower’s words preparing for D-Day. pic.twitter.com/kIN7gSCAIJ
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) June 6, 2019
Just prior to the pivotal Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944, the last major German offensive of the war, Gen. George S. Patton ordered prayer cards to be distributed to his entire Third Army, 250,000 strong.
The prayer, drafted by Third Army Chaplain James O’Neill, was for better weather, so the war could be more quickly brought to a close.
General Patton, desiring good weather for his advance to Bastogne, had Chaplain Fr. James O’Neill compose a card to be distributed to each one of the 250,000 troops under his command of the Third Army, and had all of the men pray this prayer. #WW2 pic.twitter.com/lbuQOFILY1
— WWII Pictures (@WWIIpix) December 22, 2017
“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle,” the prayer read.
“Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.”
The weather did change, by the way, and elements of the Third Army were able to rescue the 101st Airborne Division, which had been surrounded in the Belgian city of Bastogne.
Are you inspired by what these leaders said?
In October 1944, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur made his famous return to the Philippines, he announced via a radio address, “People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God our forces stand again on Philippine soil — soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples.”
“We have come, dedicated and committed, to the task of destroying every vestige of enemy control over your daily lives, and of restoring, upon a foundation of indestructible strength, the liberties of your people,” MacArthur said.
“As the lines of battle roll forward to bring you within the zone of operations, rise and strike,” he said, then closing, “The guidance of Divine God points the way. Follow in his name to the Holy Grail of righteous victory.”
After the American armed forces retook much of Manila in February 1945, MacArthur oversaw a ceremony reestablishing the Philippine government. As it concluded, he asked those assembled to join him in offering the Lord’s Prayer.
Following Nazi Germany’s surrender to the Allies in May 1945, President Harry Truman told Americans in a radio broadcast, “For this victory we join in offering our thanks to the Providence, which has guided and sustained us through the dark days of adversity and into light.”
Truman had become president following Roosevelt’s death in office in April of that year.
Truman appointed a National Day of Prayer for Sunday, May 13, regarding the victory in Europe, asking Americans “to unite in offering joyful thanks to God for the victory we have won and to pray that He will support us to the end of our present struggle.”
MacArthur would oversee the surrender of Japan on board the battleship USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945. He concluded by saying, “Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.”
In a radio address to Americans soon afterward, the general said, “And so, my fellow countrymen, today I report to you that your sons and daughters have served you well and faithfully with the calm, deliberate, determined spirit of the American soldier and sailor based on the tradition of historical truth, as against the fanaticism of an enemy supported only by mythological fiction.”
“Their spiritual strength and power has brought us through to victory. They are homeward bound — take care of them.”
The primary source of America’s spiritual strength since its founding has been faith in the God of the Bible.
Going forward, if we wish to preserve this last, best hope of freedom in the world, it must continue to be.
Randy DeSoto is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” about how leaders have appealed to belief in God and in God-given rights throughout U.S. history.
