S6:E3 Billy Graham and Nixon

S6:E3 Billy Graham and Nixon

The Grim Reality of the Watergate Scandal: Billy Graham’s Loyalty Tested – guest David Bruce

Have you heard these myths about Billy Graham’s continued support of Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal? Myth 1: Graham blindly supported Nixon without question. Myth 2: Graham’s support of Nixon was solely based on their personal friendship. Myth 3: Graham’s support of Nixon undermined his credibility as a religious leader. In this episode, our guest speakers, David Bruce and Frances Fitzgerald, will shed light on the truth behind Graham’s actions and provide valuable insights on navigating the delicate relationship between religion and politics.

In this episode, you will be able to:

  • Gain insights into the complex relationship between American evangelicals and politics, revealing the challenges and opportunities for engagement.
  • Examine the concerns surrounding the influence of religious groups in politics, cultivating a greater understanding of the potential implications and the need for discernment.
  • Discover the powerful role played by Billy Graham in shaping national policies and how his approach to faith and politics still resonates today.
  • Uncover the parallels between the Watergate scandal and current political corruption, shedding light on the importance of ethical leadership and its impact on religious communities.

My special guests are David Bruce and Frances Fitzgerald

David Bruce is the Executive Vice President of the Billy Graham Library and the new Billy Graham Archive and Research Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. With over 40 years of experience working closely with Dr. Billy Graham, David brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to the podcast. His expertise and firsthand experience make him a trusted source when exploring the complex relationship between religion and politics, specifically in relation to Billy Graham’s continued support of Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. David’s unique perspective offers a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by American evangelical leaders and their engagement with political figures. Get ready for an engaging and thought-provoking conversation with David Bruce on this episode of Truce.

The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:27 – Reverend Harold Ockengay’s Controversy

00:01:19 – Pope Pius XI and Mussolini

00:02:59 – Catholicism and the 1960 US Presidential Election

00:08:11 – Billy Graham and Politics

00:15:41 – Billy Graham’s Support for Nixon

00:16:42 – Nixon’s Civil Religion

00:17:57 – White House Church Services

00:19:35 – Graham’s Influence and Criticisms

00:21:42 – The Watergate Scandal

00:30:40 – The Importance of Prophetic Distance

00:31:41 – Franklin Graham’s Support for Trump

00:32:27 – Strange Bedfellows and the Separation of Church and State

00:33:22 – Humility and Proximity to Power

00:33:44 – Acknowledgments and Resources

Sources

  • “The Surprising Work of God” by Garth M. Rosell
  • An article from The Atlantic about the Pope and Mussolini
  • “The Popes Against the Protestants” by Kevin Madigan
  • NPR interview with Kevin Madigan
  • “A Prophet With Honor” book by William Martin
  • “The Invisible Bridge” by Rick Perlstein
  • “The Evangelicals” by Frances Fitzgerald
  • “The Failure and the Hope: Essays of Southern Churchmen” book of essays accessed on Google Books
  • New York Times article about how the Watergate break-in was financed
  • Pat Buchanan hearings during the Watergate investigation
  • Frost/Nixon transcript

Discussion Questions:

  • Was Billy Graham being a good friend by supporting Nixon after Watergate?
  • Should religious leaders maintain a certain distance between themselves and people of power?
  • Why do we like to see our governmental leaders as religious people?
  • Was Nixon’s church service in the Whitehouse wrong to be a gathering place of the rich and famous?
  • How bad was the Watergate break-in? How does it change your mind about Nixon to know about the other criminal activity?

Transcript (generated by AI)

00:00:00
This episode is part of a long series exploring how some American evangelicals tied themselves to the Truce Podcast. This episode can stand on its own, but when you’re done, go back and start at the beginning of season six. In 147, the Reverend Harold Ockengay went on a tour of Italy. He was part of a delegation of religious leaders viewing the destruction after World War II. Upon returning home, he argued that the devastation was the result of Europe turning its back on God.

00:00:27
And for a second there, it seemed like Akangei might bring some of that destruction home. First, there were the accusations. Supposedly, while in Europe, he attended the opera, purchased cigarettes, and then resold them. That was the whole controversy. This may seem quaint, but Akangei’s background was in the holiness movement, where Christians were to be holy, pure, undefiled by the things of this world.

00:00:52
All the rumors hinted that the famous minister from Boston was living a double life in the process. Akangei had to admit that while his character was upright in Italy, he did indeed sometimes go to the movies with his wife. The cigarettes he was seen with had been given to him for free, and so he passed them on to someone else. That there was the entire American hullabaloo. Yet in Italy, Protestants were upset with Akingay for another reason.

00:01:19
Akange, along with other members of the clergy, had met with Pope Pius XI. Pius XI was an interesting guy. His predecessor, Number eleven, openly criticized Hitler and the secularization of Germany. Not a good thing for Hitler, who was trying to expand his influence. So when eleven died and Number twelve was brought in, Hitler and Mussolini wanted to cozy up to him.

00:01:42
And they had plenty in common. Hatred of communism, a distrust of democracy. Mussolini had been fiercely anti cleric, but once he got to the Italian parliament, he gave a speech calling for intertwining Italy with the Catholic Church to make it a Christian nation. No separation of church and state. And why?

00:02:01
The better to gain power if an influential group is behind you. In the early 19 hundreds, Protestantism spread to Italy, in part because Protestants were focusing their efforts on reaching the poor. Italians who immigrated to the US might return to the old country equipped with a new faith. After World War I, Italians grew uneasy with the power held by Americans and the British, and also that Protestantism was spreading to Europe even as Catholicism waned in the fall of the Austrian Empire. Their solution?

00:02:33
Use the power of the Italian government to persecute Protestants and stifle the wave of evangelism. That is why Italian Protestants were upset about Akingay and other religious leaders visiting with the Pope. Because that very pope was persecuting Protestants. This whole mess trickled down to something you may never expect. The US presidential election of 1960, when a Roman Catholic, John F.

00:02:59
Kennedy, was a serious contender for the highest office in the land. Books and articles like this one cropped up. When we raise the question, should a Catholic be the President of the United States? We should not be accused of bigotry. It is a legitimate question, and to deny us the right to raise it smacks of the intolerance of which the questioner is accused.

00:03:19
This is from an article published on August 15, 1960, in the Church of God’s Evangel magazine. It’s a question that haunted some Christians in that time, Americans in general. Can the United States have a Catholic president? To our modern ears, as the author suggests, that seems like a bigoted question. In 1960, though, there were other considerations.

00:03:41
When we consider these limitations, religion is not the basic issue. Rather, it is the political action of the Roman Church. Religion is the means used to demand the loyalty to put the political action into operation. What if, say, John Kennedy is president of the United States and then gets the call from Rome that he has to use his power to benefit the Church or silence Protestantism, as Pius XI and Mussolini had in Italy? Now, today, that sounds crazy, but it was very much in the air in 1960.

00:04:12
This was not the first or the only publication to question Kennedy’s suitability as candidate for public office. In June of 1960, Akankay himself gave a speech at his Boston church asking just that. Could a Catholic president separate his official duties from his beliefs? Or would that constitute a failure of separation of church and state? In the separation of church and state argument?

00:04:37
Who is being protected in the deal, the church or the state? Or both? It depends on who you ask. A decade later, when the United States found itself embroiled in scandals involving bribes, wiretapping, illegal searches, and a break in at the Watergate Hotel, the most famous evangelist in the country found himself backing a corrupt president. Billy Graham had done plenty to encourage the head of state to identify as Christian.

00:05:05
Now, would his efforts to mix church and state backfire on the US with the church? You’re listening to the show that uses journalistic tools to look inside the Christian Church. We press pause in the culture wars in order to explore how we got here and how we can do better. I’m Chris Staron, and this is truth.

00:05:30
Okay, so we need to spend a little more time with Billy Graham. I did a whole episode in season three, but we need one more. Look, Lord, do with me as you will. That was Graham’s prayer early in his career, before he became pastor to presidents and before the big crusades. And, of course, out of that then would come the final parts of his education, his call to preach in a local church as a pastor, and then eventually to feel the pull of the Holy Spirit, to become an itinerant preacher of the Gospel.

00:06:03
By the way, this is David Bruce. I’m the executive vice president of the Billy Graham Library and the new Billy. Graham Archive and Research center in Charlote, North Carolina. He’s been with the organization for something like 40 years. Mr.

00:06:17
Bruce toured and worked closely with Dr. Graham and was a lot of fun to talk to. So this young preacher, Billy GraHam, goes on to do these huge rallies during the 1940s. That notoriety, that ability to preach in so many places, put Mr. Graham in to the national psyche.

00:06:37
And soon he met Mr. Truman. He’s consulting for presidents of the United States. It would often begin with his knowledge of them as friends before they ever either ran for public office or certainly ascended to the presidency. It was that way with Dwight Eisenhower, who was a general when they met.

00:06:56
He met Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the 1950s, he met Mr. Reagan’s actor. This notoriety, as we’ll see, was a blessing and a curse, pushing Billy to walk a tightrope between politics and faith. So these things happened not by design, but often by the. We would call it the backstroke of.

00:07:15
His life by simply doing ministry, attracting large audiences. Over the course of time, people are going to want to get involved. That’s what David Bruce says. And, you know, this is coming from someone who works at an organization bearing Graham’s name. To balance that out, let’s read what one biographer said of Billy Graham.

00:07:33
Billy Graham enjoyed proximity to power. He liked being able to have a hand, or at least a finger, in shaping national and international policy, in helping a friend gain and remain in the White House, in abetting the defeat of those whose religious and political views he believed to be mistaken. This is the story of a guy walking a tightrope. One of the founding members of the National association of Evangelicals, which, if you’ll remember from last episode, was designed to lobby for neo evangelicals to gain access to radio waves, military chaplaincies, and similar things. Graham was not a political, and he didn’t quite chase power, either.

00:08:11
Instead, he used his notoriety to do things like lobby for evangelicals. He would end up, over the course and arc of his own life and his own life history, meeting 14 different presidents, 14 successive administrations, from Mr. Truman. To Mr. Trump, quite a career, though not all of those guys were upstanding.

00:08:33
He met Mr. Nixon very interestingly in the Senate dining room very early on in Mr. Nixon’s Senate history, Richard Nixon. Served as Senator from California. Funny enough, Graham actually met Nixon’s parents.

00:08:48
First, but they really began as friends. They spent a lot of time together. The Grahams and the Nixons sometimes played golf. From 1953 to 1961, Nixon served as vice president under Eisenhower. Ike wasn’t a fan of Nixon, nor the prospect of Nixon being president.

00:09:04
In their eight years in the executive branch, Eisenhower never invited his VP to visit the residents. Biographer William Martin wrote about the Nixon Graham friendship in his excellent book A Prophet with Honor. Here is an actor reading from it. Billy always found fewer faults in his friends than others, managed to see if they liked him. He liked them and was inclined to think the best of them and to regard patent shortcomings as little more than a failure to let the sterling character he was sure they possessed manifest itself with sufficient force.

00:09:35
He wanted to believe the best of his friends, and Nixon was his buddy. That optimism would blind him to the man’s true character. Graham showed his support for Nixon’s 1956 bid for president, and Nixon attended Graham’s 1957 rally in Yankee Stadium. Billy nudged Nixon to demonstrate faith so that the voters could see and hear him, though he was often hesitant to do so. Graham said, there are many, many reasons.

00:10:01
Why I would strongly urge you to attend church regularly and faithfully from now on. I am convinced that you are going to have the backing of the overwhelming majority of the religiously minded people in America. It would be most unfortunate if some of your political enemies could point to any inconsistency. Nixon generally declined to demonstrate his faith in public. Meanwhile, Graham did more than just give religious advice, going so far as to suggest a VP nomination or to urge him to meet with Dr.

00:10:28
Martin Luther King, Jr. Nixon declined to meet MLK, possibly because of his Southern strategy, which we’ll cover next time, but also out of a bit of bravado. He didn’t think that black people would leave the party of Lincoln. After all, in 1956, 60% of the black vote went for the Republican Eisenhower. Why wouldn’t they choose him, too?

00:10:50
Nixon’s first run for the big chair was against the Catholic JFK. Protestants of many stripes worried about Rome’s potential control over Kennedy. In fact, the pamphlet read to you at the beginning of the episode was written by the director of the National association of Evangelicals, an organization that Graham helped to found. They also released a letter to evangelical pastors drumming up concern about the dangers of Roman Catholicism and, of course, communist infiltration. Public opinion is changing in favor of.

00:11:20
The Church of Rome. It is time for us to stand. Up and be counted as Protestants. Similar concerns were expressed in Christianity Today, which Graham also helped to establish and in full disclosure, serves ads to this podcast. The Billy Graham Evangelistic association put out a flyer in the first edition of Decision magazine reminding evangelicals, we Christians must work and pray as never before in this election, or the future course of America could be dangerously altered and the free preaching of the Gospel could be endangered.

00:11:51
Even theologically, liberal leaders, like those of the Federal Council of Churches showed fear. According to William Martin, Graham himself waffled down his opinions. He urged Eisenhower in a letter to support Nixon, because if Kennedy in public, Graham all but endorsed Nixon, often saying things along the lines that he was the man for the job but never quite making an official declaration. Of course, Nixon lost his bid for the presidency in one of the closest elections in US history. And opposition to Catholics dissipated with Vatican II, the Vatican Council, from 1962 to 1965 that determined that the Roman Catholic Church would now be more tolerant of other faiths, including Protestantism.

00:12:53
Billy Graham had the ear of presidents, sometimes to give advice and sometimes to offer spiritual guidance to those on both sides of the aisle, even JFK. This elevated position meant not only holding rallies with tens of thousands in attendance, but also bending the ear of those in charge. But walking that line is just not easy. Soon, his public stances, his career in political circles, would have him backing a criminal, a man partially responsible for steering the party of Lincoln away from African Americans whose team was involved in spying, corruption, bribery, money laundering, and breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Convention. I’ll continue the story after these messages.

00:13:42
Welcome back. This episode, we’re talking about Billy Graham, who spent much of his life close to power. Yeah, he kind of had to walk a fine line, which, as you said earlier, kind of nipped him in the backside a few times. Well, it did, because we’re all human. And so every one of these presidents is a sinner, like I am and you are.

00:14:00
Some were, of course, saved by grace, and others were still trying to find a spiritual meaning to their lives. But the common denominator in those 14 administrations was Billy Graham. That’s an important thing to keep in mind as we get into some hard stuff. Those in power are people, too. It doesn’t excuse their crimes, if there are any, but they need spiritual guidance as much as anybody else.

00:14:24
Like, for example, President Johnson. Johnson wrote him a letter after he left office and that letter is here in our archives. He says rather poignantly, Billy, you will never know how you lifted my burden by your visits. Well, that’s poignant. We don’t really know what all that means down inside, those men had conversations we’ll never know about.

00:14:46
But to hear the president say, you’ve lifted my burden, you’re helping me, that’s a remarkable thing. President Johnson attended a crusade, this one in Houston in 1965. Though Johnson apparently was a little distracted, Graham blasted Vietnam protesters, much to the president’s delight. He supported Johnson’s Great SocieTy measures, which provided aid for Americans, programs that would be disassembled by Nixon and Reagan. Graham was nothing if not all over the place when it came to party platforms.

00:15:15
As close as he was to the JOhnsons, he still believed that Nixon was the man of the hour. Around Christmas 1967, Nixon invited the evangelist to vacation with him in Florida as he considered whether or not to run again. Despite having pneumonia, Graham flew down. They studied the Bible, watched football, and walked on the beach, hashing out Nixon’s next move. At the end of the visit, Nixon said, you still haven’t told me what I ought to do.

00:15:41
And Graham responded, well, if you don’t. You’Ll worry for the rest of your life whether you should have, won’t you? According to Martin, more than anyone else, it was Graham who convinced Nixon to campaign a second time. Again, Billy dodged and weaved when the press asked him who he was going to support. Still, it’s hard to deny what side he was on.

00:16:01
At a Portland cRusade, he said, there. Is no AmerICan I admire more than RIChard Nixon. He offered the prayer at the Republican National Convention after Nixon was nominated, then attended the meeting to choose the vice president. Graham’s choice was not picked. Instead, Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew got the job.

00:16:19
Though he’d served only one year as governor, he’d caught Nixon’s eye after ruthlessly putting down urban riots. Neither man had patience for protests. Graham also stated in an interview that he cast his absentee ballot for Nixon. Again, not an official endorsement, but, you know, an endorsement. RiChard Nixon’s presidency ushered in a new era of civil religion.

00:16:42
With the usual prayer breakfasts and such, the president expressed his desire to see the Ten Commandments read in schools, things to signal to the public that the government is seeking the face of God. The flip side of civil religion, of course, is that events like these open opportunity for leaders to play church while currying political favor. For example, Richard Nixon was the first President of the United States to institute a weekly church service in the White House. It began his first Sunday in office with Billy Graham preaching. It became much less about piety and more about creating another it place to see and be seen.

00:17:20
Charles Coulson, special counsel to the president, was instructed via memo of the president’s request, that you develop a list of rich people with strong religious interest to be invited to the White House church services. Future attendees included presidents and board chairs of companies like At T GE, General Motors, PepsiCo, Republic Steel, and more. Of course, those people need to know about Jesus as well. But it’s in defiance of James, too, which commands us not to offer the seat of honor only to the wealthy. NonVIPs, like wives of POWs were limited to 25% of attendees.

00:17:57
Preachers were instructed to keep things light, not act like a prophet. They were sometimes invited for political quid pro quo, like with Fred Rhodes, who sought the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention. A visit to the White House would make him seem like an important man, while also giving Nixon a bump with the 12 million members of the SBC. All of this to support a man with shaky credentials. When it came to faith, Nixon, according to an advisor, didn’t even believe in Christ’s resurrection.

00:18:28
Still, it gave Graham access. Remember, he liked being close to political power, and this access did not go unnoticed. Members of the liberal clergy criticized him for not urging Nixon to end the Vietnam War fast enough. Graham went a long stretch without speaking about Vietnam until Reverend Ernest Campbell of New York’s Riverside Church publicized an open letter to Graham calling on him to use his influence. We believe that the only way you or any of us can minister to the troops and inhabitants of Vietnam is to prophesy to the Pentagon and the White House.

00:19:02
In the tradition of Micaiah, son of ImLA, and you, our brother, have been and will be the prophet summoned to those halls. Graham often responded that he was not a prophet like Nathan of the Old Testament, but he did use his influence. Some modern writers critiqued the evangelist, saying he didn’t do enough for African Americans, though he did push for integration at some of his crusades and arranged a meeting between Nixon and a group of black ministers. Apparently, they let Nixon have it for three and a half hours. So went their relationship, helping each other.

00:19:35
Apparently, though, Graham was not aware of Nixon’s true character, the side of the president that, with the benefit of hindsight, we all know well. Remember, like most Americans, nearly all Americans, so much of that was hidden. And while things began to unravel for them and there was a reflection in this country of the duplicity in that office. Mr. Graham, of course, was heartsick.

00:20:01
On June 17, 1972, a security officer named Frank Wills was working the graveyard shift at the Watergate complex. He noticed something fishy. He found tape over the door locks. Wills called the police, who turned up a group of five men. They had lock picks, door Jimmies, $2,300 in cash, 40 rolls of unexposed film, tear gas, guns, and a short wave radio.

00:20:25
The break in was significant already, but what drew national attention is that these men had links to the re Election Committee of President Richard Nixon. In the following months, a litany of charges that’s almost too long to believe came to light. We generally think of the break in as the main event, but it was far from the only immoral act. There were lesser infractions, like just icky shenanigans, stuff like buying up thousands of copies of the Washington Post to fake votes in a poll for the paper. Then there were more serious charges.

00:20:58
Destruction of evidence that tried to frame JFK for the assassination of a South Vietnamese president. Or when a defense intellectual named Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, they broke into a psychiatrist’s office to dig up dirt on him. This was the work of the notorious plumbers, Nixon’s hatchet men. Vice President agNew, himself a hatchet man, became the White House’s attack dog against liberals, lambasting the Watergate Committee for McCarthy tricks and for acting on, quote, unquote, the misguided zeal of a few individuals. Well, it turns out that as governor and Baltimore county executive, he’d accepted literal bags of cash in exchange for government contracts, a habit he continued while vice president.

00:21:42
These men ran on law and order. Yet Agnew was given only one reduced charge of income tax evasion. He spent no time in jail and got a $10,000 fine, even though that was less than the IRS said he owed in taxes. On the graft he’d taken from a single Maryland building contractor, the vice president was knee deep in bribes and walked away with a slap on the wrist. That angst you feel about that?

00:22:09
Imagine how it felt at the time. Trust in government crumbled. You could get more serious charges by breaking a window during a protest. When called to testify, Pat Buchanan, then a speechwriter for Nixon, revealed tactics used by the campaign. One mission was to ensure that Nixon ran against the weakest Democrat, who they judged to be George McGovern.

00:22:30
He admitted to arranging fake demonstrations against Democratic candidates, planting letters to the editor in newspapers, having fake protesters duck into photographs with opponents to make it look like there was a demonstration going on when it was just one guy with a sign. Nothing illegal about that, perhaps, but it certainly erodes one’s confidence in the electoral process. Then there was the way they financed the burglary. Some of it was laundered through a Mexican bank, and $199,000 was paid to G. Gordon Liddy for supplies.

00:23:01
Money was hidden in wads of $100 bills stuffed into lockers and airports, hotel rooms and telephone booths. John Dean, White House Counsel, testified about his attempts to shut down the FBI’s investigation of Watergate and arrange payoffs for defendants to perjure themselves. Nixon was found to have hidden profits from a land sale. He claimed California as his voting residence, but paid no state taxes there. Republicans, including Ronald Reagan, went on the warpath after all the negative coverage and blamed the Eastern press establishment, not unlike recent attacks on the mainstream media.

00:23:36
Chuck Colson went so far as to threaten to revoke the broadcast licenses of the major networks if they didn’t comply with what he considered balanced coverage, I. E. Coverage that didn’t make the criminals look so bad. And the list continues. The president’s personal attorney, Herbert Kumbach, pled guilty to setting up fake political committees in 1970 to launder Senate campaign contributions.

00:23:59
Then there was Nixon’s obstruction of justice, one of the articles of impeachment leveled against him. As you know, he had an audio recording system in the Oval Office. And the president stalled and stalled when handing over the tapes, offering edited transcripts instead of the originals, eventually leaving out entire sections or covering them with a buz. Archibald Cox, a Harvard law professor, was in charge of the investigation, and Nixon ordered his attorney general and deputy attorney general to fire Cox. But both men resigned instead.

00:24:30
The next attorney general followed the order, and then less than a half hour later, the White House sent the FBI to close off the offices of the special prosecutor, an incident known now as the Saturday Night Massacre, when the president ordered the end of an investigation of himself. The list goes on and on. My point here is to impress upon you how bad this was and how drawn out was. The process from the break in to Nixon’s resignation was almost two years and two months. Imagine the kind of mental burden that was on the country.

00:25:01
I also want to dwell on the depth of the corruption because there are people out there who want to downplay this event. Nixon himself believed that the chief executive could do stuff like this simply because he was the chief executive. There’s a fascinating moment from an interview with David Bruce after this whole affair was over. Where Nixon says something remarkable. He plays up the difficulty of the era.

00:25:22
Airline hijackings, intelligence agencies not working together, bombings, student protests, all of these stresses against national security. And what follows here is a recreation. The interviewer tries to clarify what, in. A sense, you’re saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston plan, or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide what’s in the best interest of the nation or something, and do something illegal. Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal by definition.

00:25:53
Exactly. If the president. If, for example, the president approves something, approves an action because of the national security, or in this case, because of the threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president’s decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out to carry it out without violating a law. I know that’s kind of a jumble of words, but in Nixon’s opinion, if the chief executive deemed it a matter of national security, a president should have orders carried out without fear of breaking the law. The president, in other words, in Nixon’s opinion, is above the law.

00:26:32
The Nixon administration entered us into a constitutional crisis where the executive branch tried to deny the other branches the right to check its power. It was more than just a break in. It was an attempt to assert control. Some notable figures stood with Nixon. One was Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, and we’ll get to him later this season.

00:26:53
The other was the REverend Billy Graham. He didn’t participate in WAtergate, and there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he was aware of any of it before the public was. But he was still supportive of Nixon until it was all but impossible. As things began to break, Mr. Graham tried to reach out to his friend.

00:27:12
He was basically cut off from Mr. Nixon in the final months of his presidency. He couldn’t get a call through. They didn’t call him. He would later believe that they were trying to shield him in some way.

00:27:23
So the president did not return calls. Graham’s remembrance of this changed over time. White House logs actually show that the two men talked four times in the last months of Nixon’s presidency. He never condoned what Watergate was. He always dealt with it as it was.

00:27:39
It was a sin. It was a transgression in this country’s history. It was a rip and a tear in our fabric. But Mr. Graham never lost his friendship.

00:27:47
One of the peculiar bits of this story is how Graham reacted in public to the transcripts of the Oval Office tapes which were published in newspapers. Many accusations of wrongdoing were made clear by then, and according to Martin, what he found there devastated him. He wept, he threw up, and he almost lost his innocence about Richard Nixon. Graham’s response was visceral at first and then OD in the process. Rather than talk about Nixon’s crimes, he focused on his use of salty language and taking God’s name in vain.

00:28:17
It seems OD to us that Graham was shocked by Nixon’s use of foul language. But many other commentators picked up on the same thing. Graham wasn’t the only one, and the fallout from Graham’s continued support is somewhat up for debate. I asked Frances Fitzgerald about this. She’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of several books, including The Evangelicals.

00:28:38
That relationship with Nixon was one that was fraught with some difficulties and certainly seems to have maybe hurt his public image. Yes, it did. Certainly in the end, because he kept with Nixon right through Watergate. He really thought he had to save Nixon, and he believed that Nixon never done any of these things again. He was trying to keep a middle ground, and Nixon was sort of promising him that.

00:29:10
But then along comes Watergate, and it destroys Nixon, but it also really destroys Graham as a moral force for a while, and he goes off on crusades abroad. He spends a lot of time abroad after Nixon. In 1980, while other evangelical leaders were vocal supporters of Ronald Reagan, Graham held back, probably because he’d been burned before, and we’ll get there soon. He continued to participate in major crusades as well as officiate at national events like the memorial Service for 911. Graham was on the list of Gallup’s most admired men 41 times from 1955 to 1998.

00:29:54
If he lost any credibility from his friendship with Nixon, it’s hard to quantify. It seems that Graham did have some thoughts about his entanglements with power later in life. He told Christianity Today in 2011, I. Would have steered clear of politics. I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places.

00:30:13
People in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back, I know I sometimes cross the line, and I wouldn’t do that now. He regretted when he crossed the line, and I think we can cut him some slack from time to time. I mean, if you were asked to give spiritual guidance to a person in high standing, wouldn’t you? I mean, presidents, queens, kings, dukes, and members of Congress, all need Jesus as much as the next person.

00:30:40
Of course, if that crosses into doing politics or endorsing morally questionable candidates, that tends to get one in trouble. As a guest on this show said in season one, godly people should maintain prophetic distance when ministering to those in power, like Daniel refusing to eat the King’s food. We have to keep separate when we’re talking to those in high status or risk being unable to see the truth and call them out on it. It seems, for the most part, Billy Graham figured that out. At the same time, Graham’s son Franklin has not.

00:31:14
As ongoing investigations reveal more about President Donald Trump and his administration, Franklin looks a lot like his father during Watergate. When Fox News tweeted about the verdict against Donald Trump in his sexual assault case last spring, Graham responded by writing, it is a disappointment that our illegal system has become so politicized. Pray for our nation, he called out. The old chestnut from the Nixon years. When the court system prosecutes your crimes, speak out against the judicial branch.

00:31:41
Now here’s a different one. From April 9, 2021, Donald Trump became president not to make money, but to do his best to preserve the great things about this nation for future generations. He put America first. I’ve never seen anyone work harder. Thank you, President Trump, for your service to this nation, or this one from March 20, 2023 we need to pray for our country and where it is headed.

00:32:03
The left in Washington and across the country just can’t get their fill of attacking Donald Trump. They are so paranoid of him. The onslaught against him is continual. There is no question the media and the left manipulated the last election, and they are scared to death of Donald Trump’s possible return. This brings me back to the beginning of this episode where I discussed the role the Catholic Church played in persecuting Protestants in Italy in the 1940s.

00:32:27
What did American evangelicals say was the problem there? The failure to separate the church and the state. The Roman Catholic Church tied itself to a dictator in order to accomplish its goals. While nobody claims that Graham wants to wipe out another Christian movement, as the pope did in the 1940s, politicians and preachers make strange bedfellows, a theme we’ll see a lot this season. Yet we also kind of want preachers to speak out on injustice, as the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

00:32:55
Did. We ask them to walk a tightrope, to be involved in politics without also getting soiled by their proximity. What do we really think about the separation of church and state, and when does it apply? When we’re confronted with hard truths about those in power, like Harold Ockengay was when he visited the Pope? Are we going to fixate on details like whether or not he did or didn’t attend the opera, or are we going to be honest about the bigger issue?

00:33:22
If a politician we back is caught red handed, will we humble ourselves or get distracted by their dirty language? Are we seeking righteousness or are we really looking for proximity to power?

00:33:44
Special thanks to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and David Bruce. You can hear more of our interview by going to patreon.com Slash Trucepodcast and giving a little each month to help me make this project. For a list of my sources, check your show notes or the website at www.trucepodcast.com There you can sign up for the email list, listen to old episodes, and find out how to help via Venmo PayPal check or whatever. I relied heavily on the Evangelicals by Francis Fitzgerald, who was also kind enough to join me for an interview. I also recommend a prophet with honor, the Billy Graham Story by William Martin.

00:34:17
It’s well-written and a great resource. Thanks also to all the people who gave me their voices for this episode. My friends Chris Staron, Jackie Hart, and Marcus Watson of the Spiritual Life and Truce Podcast is a production of Truce Media, LLC. I’m Chris Staron and this is Truce.

S5:E36 The Only Thing We Have To Fear

S5:E36 The Only Thing We Have To Fear

Give to support the Truce Podcast

What did FDR mean by “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?”

On March 4, 1933, FDR delivered his inaugural address. In it, he used the phrase “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. I did a little searching and this phrase is used a LOT in Christian books. So often. But it almost always refers to the fear one person has in their heart. In reality, it is a comment on collective fear. The Great Depression started in 1929 and was exacerbated by a bank run in which Americans lost faith in the value of our currency and the banking systems.

Do we believe in God’s economy?

That is an important distinction. FDR’s speech is about collective fear. As I’ve contemplated the modernist/fundamentalist debate this season, I keep returning to the idea of fear, not in the US economy but in God’s economy. He commands us to love the Lord, keep His commands, love our neighbors, turn the other cheek, and give to those who ask of us. Why do we forget to do this important work? Could it be because we’ve lost faith in God’s economy?

This episode features a clip from my discussion with Jacob Goldstein, former host of NPR’s Planet Money podcast and the current host of Pushkin’s What’s Your Problem? podcast. His book is Money: The True Story of a Made-up Thing.

Select Sources

Discussion Questions:

  • Why does it matter that FDR’s quote “…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” is a collective statement and not one about individual fear?
  • What are some identifying features of God’s economy?
  • Do you trust in the way that God tells us to do things?
  • When was the last time you prayed for someone who you don’t like?
  • Do you believe in turning the other cheek?
S3:36 McCarthyism Before McCarthy

S3:36 McCarthyism Before McCarthy

Many people think that Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunts for Communists in the US government were a one-time event. But the US was hunting suspected Communists long before McCarthyism. We explore how the New York City School System set up a kangaroo court to flush out communists with the Rapp-Coudert Committee. The New York City Public Schools did McCarthyism long before Joseph McCarthy.

Many of us are familiar with Joseph McCarthy and his infamous hearings on Communism in the US government. What we don’t know is that McCarthy was far from the first person to use these tactics. In this episode of the Truce Podcast we examine the Rapp-Coudert Committee– an effort in the New York City school system to root out Communists, Fascists, and Nazis who might be teaching students. In the end, even outspoken Christians participated in this witch hunt, which targeted mostly Jewish teachers and staff.

Discussion Questions:

  • Why were Americans so afraid of Communists?
  • Was it against the constitution to withhold rights from people because Rapp-Coudert was just a hearing?
  • What would you have done if you were accused of being a communist? Would you have named names?
  • Why were Jewish people targeted for violence by the Christian Front?
  • Do the actions of one part of a group define the entire group? In this episode, some communists advocated for using schools to teach communism. But, to our knowledge, nobody in the district did that. Yet they were accused of having done so.
  • Who do we scapegoat today in our society?
  • Knowing that the Soviets did have spies working in the US government (like Klaus Fuchs who stole nuclear secrets), what should the government have done to root out spies?
  • Did you know that the New York City Public Schools did McCarthyism long before Joseph McCarthy?

Helpful Links:

Transcript (some dialogue may have changed)

This episode is part of a long series that explores how communism in Russia impacted the American Christian Church. This episode can stand on its own, but when you’re done, go back and start at the beginning of season three.

The New York City Public Schools did McCarthyism long before Joseph McCarthy.

Picture the smiling, bearded face of Santa Clause. A cute little cartoon Santa standing on a mound of snow in the North Pole. An igloo in the background. This is from a comic strip by Herbert Block. It came out when Americans were petrified of Soviet Russia. Nothing like a little Cold War humor. The caption under this happy drawing reads:

CAPTION: An International agent with headquarters close to Soviet Russia.

Yep, Santa travels internationally. The north pole looks kind of close to Russia on the map. Okay… The next block has his naughty and nice list.

CAPTION: Head of a gigantic espionage ring with files on millions of Americans.

A collection bin for charity sits next to a stuffed St. Nick in a department store. A man reaches into his pocket to donate.

CAPTION: Openly opposed to the profit motive, and flooding the country with propaganda.

Maybe you see where this is going. Another block shows a set of parents stands by an open closet with presents spilling out. They hold their fingers to their mouths and made a shhh sound to each other.

CAPTION: Responsible for the fomenting of plots and secret actions in countless American homes.

Finally, Santa and his reindeer fly over a snowy city, passing in front of the moon.

CAPTION: Planning to enter the US illegally and under cover of darkness the night of December 24th!

The cartoon does what only really smart humor can do – it points out a deep truth, while making us laugh. In the case of this strip, it demonstrates that just about anyone could be accused of being a Soviet Spy.

It was written in response to the Dies Committee, also known as the Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Created in 1938 by the House of Representatives, to look into the spread of propaganda and to determine who, if anyone, was involved in communist activities in the United States.

They were not the first to do this. They were preceded by the Special Committee to Investigate Communist Activities of 1930. Followed by the Special Committee on Un-American Activities of 1934. They were very creative with their names back then.

The United States, even before WWII, was suspicious of its own citizens. Were we spreading ideas that might undermine our system of government? Was Bolshevism growing in America? This created a series of mini-red scares. Kangaroo courts in the land of the free and the home of the brave that dragged people before public hearings, and smeared their names. For thought crimes.

We like to think of the United States as a place with a long history of free speech. Freedom of ideas. The right to assemble. But in the 1900’s, all of that was put on trial as a quote-unquote Christian nation feared impending doom.

You’re listening to the show that uses journalistic tools to look inside the Christian Church. We press pause on the culture wars in order to explore how we got here and how we can do better. I’m Chris Staron. This is Truce.

The Hunt for Communists in NY City School Districts

By 1940 the world was at war. Well, not the US. We were actually pretty late to WWII. There was a lot of pressure in the US to stay out of it.

Europe was in serious trouble. Fascism was taking over. We were emerging from the Great Depression. Even though we were out of the war, we were worried that foreign countries could be having an influence on us.

So, when Herbert Rapp, a Republican in the New York State legislature introduced a bill to examine school spending in the state, someone said…

MAN: Hey, if we’re going to be investigating the schools anyway, why don’t we also see if there are any Fascist, Nazi, and Communist influences in the schools?

Thus was born the Rapp-Coudert Committee.

Remember, the committee was interested in budgets. Numbers. While they were there, could they also root out Fascists, Nazis, and Communists? Kind of a lot for one committee. And there were a plenty of interests at play. One estimate from the time said that 10% of students in New York City had to stand because there were no desks for them. Class sizes ballooned to fifty kids per teacher. There wasn’t a lot of money. This was the end of the Depression. Conservatives wanted to balance the state budget by cutting schools even further. Liberals sought more funding. But everyone wanted to know… were children, some of them standing all day, being taught Fascist or Communist ideas in the classroom?

They chose as their chief counsel a man named Paul Windels.

The Man Who Fought Tammany Hall

Paul Windels was the real deal, with an impressive track record. New York City had been super corrupt for decades at this point. Graft. Government contracts going to the highest bidder. All organized by a New York City political organization known as Tammany Hall. Corruption from top to bottom. Fascinating stuff. Mobsters. Deals made in back rooms. Windels and a bunch of other people were instrumental in bringing down the corruption.

So when it came time to choose someone to lead the Rapp-Coudert Committee, to be the chief counsel, Windels looked like the perfect guy. Not only was he a Republican, which means he’d be tough on the budget, but he was also a liberal. Yes, that was possible. Whereas later hearings like those under Joseph McCarthy would be pigeon-holed as conservative witch hunts, Rapp Coudert was bipartisan. Many of its key participants were liberals.

Windels said he’d run this investigation like the one that brought down Tammany Hall7. Because it had been so successful in rooting out corruption. What he wanted, at least, what he said he wanted to was to steer clear of pitfalls earlier committees had fallen into. Making charges against people based on:

WINDELS: Gossip, rumor, or hearsay.

His stated desire was essentially to treat these hearings, these inquiries into people who might be spreading Fascism and Communism, like a grand jury. Keep it fair. Keep it honest.

That’s… that’s not what he did though. What he ended up doing was trying people in the court of public opinion. He denied them their rights. Withheld information. Assumed guilt. Ruining careers, destroying friendships, and setting the stage for the more famous McCarthy hearings of the 1950s.

Here’s how it worked. Windels and his team interviewed people. Staff, faculty, in closed door meetings.

WINDELS: Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the communist party?

Something like that. But the person being interviewed did not have a right to a lawyer. This was just a hearing, after all. They’d have someone in the corner taking dictation. The transcript would then be typed up and… kept secret. The transcripts of those private hearings were only for Windels and his team. Meaning, that the defense didn’t have access to the evidence. In a trial, lawyers defending someone have a right to the evidence that will be used against their client. Transcripts of depositions. Interviews. Police records. This was just a hearing, though. That information was held only by Windels and his team.

When they got into the public hearing, in front of the press and lookie-loos, Windels called witnesses to the stand. But nobody was allowed to offer a defense or cross-examine the witnesses. Meaning if Windels were to say…

WINDELS: (wry) What is it like being a dirty communist?

Which I don’t think he said, I made that up. But if he said that, there would be nobody to counter with…

MAN: (as in a courtroom) Objection!

Like you see in courtroom dramas. Or to ask follow up questions of witnesses. So, if you had a witness on the stand who said…

WOMAN: I believe that Professor Smith is a communist.

… there was nobody there to ask a follow up question. No matter how obvious that question was. Like…

MAN: How do you know that Professor Smith is a communist? Did you see him distributing materials? Attending rallies? Recruiting students?

Nope. Nobody could ask those follow ups. If someone said…

WOMAN: I believe that Professor Smith is a communist.

… and Windels and his team didn’t ask how in the world she knew that, the question never got asked. You see the problem with that? People on the stand could speculate and, maybe, nobody would question them. Whatever they said, no matter how unfounded, made it into the public record. And then the newspapers. Which is another difference between this hearing and a grand jury: grand juries are performed in secret. The Rapp-Coudert hearings were public.

The Rapp-Coudert Trap

So, let’s say that you and I are communists. I’m not a communist, we’re pretending here. Maybe we just went to a meeting once. Read some literature. Or maybe one of our close colleagues was a communist. They might suspect us of being Soviet supporters too. What are our options? We are called before this committee to testify. The meeting is public, the media are present. What do we say? How do we defend ourselves?

Why don’t we plead the fifth?

MAN: I plead the fifth.

You probably hear that in courtroom dramas too. It’s referring to the fifth amendment of the constitution, which says, among other things, that a person can’t be…

CONSTITUTION: “…compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

The City of New York got around the fifth amendment by requiring in its charter that all public employees had to cooperate with legislative and other investigations. If they didn’t comply, they could lose their job. Simply for staying… silent. Which, under a normal trial, would be their right. Laws protecting people from stuff like this wouldn’t be strengthened until the 1960s.

So, if you and I, two suspected communists, stay silent, we risk losing our jobs. No small problem while the US was still in the Great Depression. That was not exactly the best time to go unemployed.

Also, Windels and public opinion were against you if you pled the fifth, seeing it as an admission of guilt. It’s bad logic, but it went something like this: why would you keep quiet if you had nothing to hide? Umm… because it’s you right?

When Communism Was Illegal

In 1940 there was nothing illegal about being a member of the Communist Party. Not until 1954 during the Eisenhower Administration. Nor was it illegal to go to meetings, read or distribute literature, or invite people to join. All of that was still legal.

Yet public opinion was against communism, even at this time. Before the Cold War really heated up. Or cooled down. Or whatever. The fear was less about one person being a communist. The concern was that a teacher would share their ideas with the classroom. Indoctrinate others. The Rapp-Coudert Commission was going to stop that from happening. And fix the budget or whatever, too. If they had time.

Public opinion was with them. Even among liberals. Teachers were expected to keep their personal beliefs out of the classroom. A New York Times article from 1940 argued that freedom of speech and assembly ended at the schoolhouse door. Communists, it argued, lost first amendment protection by “practicing bad faith”

Windels said in his opening remarks:

WINDELS: “there is no civil liberty to commit a breach of trust; there is no academic freedom to be one thing and pretend to be something else; there is no freedom in this country to poison the rising generation in the name of any political philosophy which practices hypocrisy and deception, as a part of its central and vital doctrine.”

In other words, don’t be sharing your communist principles in public schools or colleges. They undermine our system of government. They poison our kid’s minds. Don’t do it.

There Were Communists in New York City Schools

Let me let you in on a little secret. Here, let’s go into this back room where nobody else can hear us.

Okay, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this… There were communists among the faculty and staff… estimates at the time said there were as many as a few hundred. But over 30,000 people worked there. Even if there were a thousand secret communists, which was the high estimate, we’d still only be talking about 3% of the staff. So, there were communists, but not many compared to the number of staff. Those guys, the people doing the hearings… they were afraid that this tiny minority might use their platforms as teachers to spread communism through the New York City School systems. Here’s the problem…Windels never had any evidence that they’d shared their political opinions with anyone else.

That’s key. There was no evidence that they’d indoctrinated their students. None. His team found literature that encouraged communists to use schools to spread their beliefs… but there was no evidence that anyone ever had.

I know that may sound like I’m splitting hairs. But there were lots of different kinds of communists, just like there are lots of different kinds of Christians. Some communists did advocate for infiltrating the schools. Does that mean that the people pulled before the Rapp Coudert Commission did? No. It’s like if you found a pamphlet calling for all Christians to handle snakes to test your faith in God. Does that prove that all Christians handle snakes? No. Not at all. The belief of one segment of a group does not necessarily define the whole group.

Windels and his team had no evidence of indoctrination. Still – in their minds, if you were a communist it was proof enough that you were using your position to influence the minds of young people.

Okay… Coast is clear. I don’t think they saw us duck in here. Let’s go.

Where were we? Right. Let’s continue our example. If someone said that I were a communist, even if they didn’t present any evidence, I was in a tight place. Lets take another look at my options.

What To Do If You’re A Suspected Communist

If I pled the fifth, I could be fired and the press would assume I was guilty. I could admit to being a communist, but then I’d definitely get fired.. Or… I could name names. List some communists or people I might just have a hunch about and, by doing so, prove what a patriot I am.

None of those are particularly great options. Especially if you had some affiliation with the Communist party. Someone may come out and say your name. Then you’d be fired and blacklisted for lying.

If you were accused… what could you do? With their options narrowing, some of those who would be called to the witness stand came up with a plan. A way to blame all of this on one man. Pick a patsy. One guy to take the fall for everyone.

We’ll be back after these messages.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Some people named names. People like professor Bernard Grabanier, a former member of the Party himself. William Martin Canning was another. He alone pointed fingers at 44 municipal college employees in the public hearing, though he’d named 63 in the private ones. 37 of those were confirmed by a woman named Annette Sherman-Gottsengen. Based on the testimony of just those two people, suspensions began within weeks.

Anyone could see what was at stake. Not only could you lose your job, but possibly your career in academia. And your name would be smeared in the papers. Even just an accusation meant your pals stopped talking to you because it became a liability to be your friend. Nobody’s going to publish the research of a suspected communist. Family members, colleagues, friends disappeared for fear of being roped into your nightmare.

Those who had participated in communist activities came up with a plan: have one person admit to being a communist. The communist. The only one in the teachers union. That guy could draw the public attention on himself, be the sacrificial lamb… and then protest the hearing in a higher court to challenge the system. Get everyone else off the hook, and provide legal grounds for a real trial.

The Tale of Morris Shappes

The lot fell on Morris Shappes. Shappes was an immigrant from Ukraine. A trade unionist and anti-fascist. He spoke with a stammer, and was beloved by his students. He’d joined the communist party around 1934. When it was his turn to testify, he claimed that he was the unicorn: the last and only communist member of the staff.

It didn’t work. Because people like William Canning had already provided a list of suspected communists. Shappes was indicted for perjury eight days later, convicted on four counts, and served a year and a half in jail.

With their attempt to move all of the blame on one guy behind them, more faculty and staff were called to testify. Soon enough, an unhappy pattern started to emerge.

The Hunt for Communists Became a Hunt for Jews

Of 20 people suspended in May, all but 4 were Jewish. It wasn’t just in these hearings that anti-semitism cropped up. In 1949 New York passed the Feinberg Law, which blocked communists from getting jobs in public education. In the first wave of firings after Feinberg, all but one were Jews.

Public opinion was not with Jewish people. In 1938, 60% of Americans polled had negative opinions of Jews. Before 1933 there were five organizations in the US that were explicitly anti-semitic. By 1941, there were over 100.

This wave of anti-semitism was felt even in Christian circles. Father Charles Coughlin was a famous radio host and Nazi sympathizer. In May of 1938, he called for the founding of the Christian Front – a movement dedicated to protecting supposedly Christian institutions from communists… and Jews. This guy is just bumming me out.

The Christian Front organized meetings on street corners and in assembly halls. They were largely working-class Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Poland, and Italy. Folks notoriously stuck with bad jobs. No upward mobility. They saw Wall Street as run by Jews, and the New Deal as creeping socialism. Because of movements like The Christian Front, New York saw a sharp rise in anti-semitic violence.

Christians Censored The Golden Age of Cinema

This happened at the same time that Hollywood started censoring content. Rumors surfaced that Jewish Hollywood executives were using lude content to subvert society. Spreading communist ideas through film. Christian groups protested, forcing studios to self-censor. I did a whole episode about this, but it bears repeating: the golden age of cinema didn’t occur because people were cleaner, happier, nicer people back then. It happened because Christian groups threatened to boycott the industry. And Jewish people who did work in the film world, were afraid of persecution. Apparently, with good reason. Remember, this is right when Jewish people were being persecuted in Europe. Why couldn’t that happen here?

Jewish Professors at Brooklyn College and City College of New York provided a list of Nazi sympathizers and anti-black and anti-Jewish acts performed by staff members. Even outright supporters of Mussolini. Yet the Coudert Committee concluded that there was no Nazi or Fascist activity in the schools. None. Lots of commies. No Nazis. Despite evidence to the contrary.

In all the committee interviewed almost 700 people in its kangaroo style. Interrogating 500 odd witnesses. At City College of New York alone, the investigation resulted in the firing of over 50 staff members.

Ultimately, the committee lasted for just a few years. One nail in its coffin was Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. When the Soviet Union was forced to join the fight against the Axis powers. Not long after, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese along with many other targets in the Pacific. The US was at war. What good would it do to persecute our allies?

The Rapp-Coudert hearing was just a precursor to what would come after the war. Blacklists in Hollywood. McCarthyism in the government. Following much the same tack as their predecessor. These kangaroo courts pulled people into the public eye. Ignored due process, constitutional rights, and ruined reputations. We like to think of the United States as a place where people are free. They can think what they want. Join any group they choose. Speak as they wish. But history shows us that we don’t really hold to that standard.

When fear grips the country, all bets are off. We act irrationally.

Compare these persecutions in the US and those in the Soviet Union. The Soviets oppressed people who didn’t agree with them. So did the US. Of course, the difference is that the United States didn’t kill our targets in these cases. We did however, shame them publicly, often on weak or nonexistent evidence ruining relationships, careers, and families.

Today these stories should bring up a lot of questions in our minds. If we are a Christian nation as some people say, how should we deal with our enemies, real or perceived? One of the big questions of this season is who gets to experience the rights as a citizen? Who gets protection under the First Amendment to speak freely? Who can plead the fifth?

How Do Christians React During Dark Times?

Is it just people who think like we do? Christians, are you getting this? Is it just people who think like we do? If so, that’s not really free speech at all.

Perhaps our fear of the other just isn’t working for us. It certainly creates a frustrating past for us to look back on. When we see our country persecuting people for a legal belief. Christian groups scapegoated Jewish people.

Yet… sigh… it’s too simple to leave it there. Wouldn’t it be nice and tidy if I just made us feel bad about the past? Yeah, it’s not that easy. It ignores a really basic fact: There were Soviet spies in the Allied countries. People like Klaus Fuchs, a primary physicist on the Manhattan Project who passed information about the atomic bomb to the Soviets. Yeah, he was a communist. And not the only one. There were Soviet spied in many parts of the US government. It was because of men like Fuchs that the Soviets went from far behind the US to equal to us in nuclear capability in short order.

Messes with your moral indignation, right? The trick is that history is complicated. We lampoon the Cold War as being a bunch of worry about nothing – but there was a lot on the line. The fate of the whole world, really, because of the threat of nuclear war.

But when we suspend justice and due process in our desperate attempts to find someone to blame… is that really the action of a Christian people? For the people of the Christian Front it was easier to blame the Jews than to fix the underlying societal problems. For people like Windels, it was easier to use trickery to frame someone for a crime than to do an actual investigation. Give the people a quick, clear enemy.

When we suspend justice in favor of a circus we end up where we started: with guys like Santa Clause seeming like the enemy. His coat is red! So is Rudolph’s nose! Of course he’s a communist! But those kinds of conspiracies make us looks ridiculous. We Christians can’t be about convenient conspiracies… we have to be willing to do the hard work of justice.

Want to go deeper into these issues around the dinner table tonight? Well, I’ve put together some questions based on this episode that you can use to spark discussion. They are in your show notes on your device and on the website at trucepodcast.com

The backbone of this story comes from the book Bad Faith by Andrew Feffer. I’ve got a list of other resources on the website. Truce is a listener supported show. My goal is to do this full time. If you’d like to be a part of making these stories, of raising the bar on what Christian media can be, visit trucepodcast.com/donate. This topic is really important to me, so I’ll be posting a special bonus about why it’s important for patrons.

I’d also love for you to follow the show on social media. I’m on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @trucepodcast. And would you consider leaving a comment on your podcasting app? It helps people find the show and I do try to read them. It’s nice to hear from ya’ll.

Thanks again to Roy Browning from JMC Brands who built the website at trucepodcast.com and my friend the author Andrew Huff who designed the logo.

God willing we’ll be back in two weeks with more. I’m Chris Staron. This is Truce.

S3:E31 We Want A King

S3:E31 We Want A King

What do evangelical Christians hope to get out of the 2020 election?

What do evangelical Christians hope to get out of the 2020 election?

That’s a big question, right? Do we want to find a person who will represent us? Who will give us access to the seat of power? A person who will listen?

In this episode of the Truce Podcast, Chris asks some big questions. Do we share the gospel because we want people to know Jesus, or because we are claiming this land for ourselves? Leading up to the 2020 election, we need to stop being a people driven by anger and start being a people of the Word. What do evangelical Christians hope to get out of the 2020 election? Maybe the better question is to start with “what do I hope to gain from this election?”

Is the patriot church on the right track?

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT

This episode is part of a long series about how communism in Russia impacted the American Christian Church. This episode can stand on its own, but when you’re done, go back to the beginning of season three.

You walk into a restaurant. A greasy spoon diner. It’s the 1970s. There are booster seats stacked by the door. Tall, sticky, plastic menus in a little box. Knick knacks up high on shelves shelves.

WOMAN: One, please, for breakfast.

A server shows you to a booth. There on the table is the usual – silverware wrapped in napkins. Menu. A glass of water, some butter packets. Salt, pepper.

That’s weird. Stuck between the specials and a list of pies is a brochure. You open it up. Inside is a picture of a family. They look happy, well dressed, sitting in a pew. They’re in church, surrounded by a multi-ethnic smattering of people. All looking forward attentively while an American flag hangs in the background, slightly out of focus.

In big bold letters is written:

WOMAN: (slow, like she’s reading) Go to Church.

Let’s you and I do a gut check. How do you feel about this being at your table? What questions do you have?

It probably all depends on your religious beliefs. If you’re religious, this probably looks really good to you. Evangelism is the bedrock of many denominations and religions. Plus it may seem refreshing, as an American, let’s say you’re an American, to see a business owner expressing themselves without fear of repercussions. Not to mention the multi-ethnic ethos of the pictures. It shows unity. And the flag represents patriotism.

Let’s assume that at this point you’re cool with this brochure. You read it, think…

WOMAN: When was the last time I went to church?

And put it back where you found it. Time for pancakes.

WOMAN: With a side of hash browns, please.

For a lot of us, that would be the whole story. I saw a pamphlet, it was interesting, I thought about it’s most blatant message, and then I ordered breakfast. We’re often comfortable with the most obvious message. What if we didn’t do that this time? I don’t know about you, but I always want to know more. For example, who put this brochure at my table? Was it the server, business owner, or the last person to sit here? Makes a difference, right? Because these could be at every table and we’re all seeing this, or just my table. Maybe the server is sneakily evangelizing at the risk of their job. Or the owner of the establishment wants the pamphlet there. Who put it there changes the narrative quite a lot. If I do want to know more about God, can I ask the server or owner? Or did some traveling salesman tuck this thing next to the specials and then split, leaving me to figure out what to do with it?

Also, the brochure is vague. That makes a huge difference too! Is this promoting Christianity or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, or Hari Krishnas?

That’s also very important. But it doesn’t give us any clues.

Lets do another gut check – what do you think about the brochure now? Still want to move on with your day, order those pancakes? Or, like me, are you growing a little suspicious?

WOMAN: Maybe just a cup of coffee while I think about this…

I thought so. Who would put a leaflet down just telling me to go to church? Any church? And who has the resources to distribute a vague pamphlet? Okay, so you look really hard at this document and in tiny print on the back you see that the ad was paid for by some of the largest corporations in the world. Auto manufacturers, oil companies, food packaging outfits.

They have the right to do that, to print materials like this. And it’s legal, and kind of admiral that someone here at the restaurant felt comfortable distributing it. But it’s not like we’re used to big companies telling us how to live our lives. At least, not so explicitly.

WOMAN: Why does big oil want me to go to church?

Good question. Maybe the CEO is religious and wants to encourage you to be too. Or, another, darker interpretation is that…

WOMAN: (thinking as she speaks) The people who run these companies see religion and patriotism as synonymous. Good for the country.

And they printed it using advertising money from their business. What company do you know of who would print expensive advertising that didn’t help them?

WOMAN: How does this pamphlet help a business when their logo isn’t even on the ad?

Aha. Well, again, it’s the 1970s. The Cold War is on. Children are being taught in schools what to do in case of a nuclear war. Bomb shelters are installed small towns across the country. The more critical approach is to say that since the United States is at war with an atheistic, communist country, the brochure is the corporation’s way of nudging you as a member of the public to support capitalism. Why? Because capitalism has room for religion, while communism, at least according to Karl Marx, doesn’t.

WOMAN: And that benefits the businesses because they don’t want collectivization.

Right. They don’t want the government to own their industry, their means of production. Or the regulatory environment that comes with that much government oversight. In other words…

WOMAN: Religion can be used to reinforce capitalism.

That is the darker interpretation. Oof. Who thought that simply going to a diner could be so complicated?

WOMAN: I’m ready for the check, please.

History demonstrates that religion has been used to reinforce capitalism. That’s what we’ve been talking about for the last few weeks. Men like James Fifield, Abraham Vereide, and organizations like the Ad Council were actively advertising for religion in the United States during the middle of the 1900s. Often financed by big businesses, some of which were driven by libertarian ideas. As we’ll see in a future episode, Billy Graham was in the mix too – one of his nicknames was the “big business evangelist”. Because he also tied religion, patriotism, and capitalism in his sermons.

Let’s do a third gut check. How does this make you feel? Knowing what we’ve learned so far.

I’ll be honest with you, all of this makes me feel conflicted. As a Christian, I want people to know the hope I have in Jesus. There is no more important thing in my life than my faith in Christ. I believe that He died for my sins. That it is a free gift to those who would follow Him. I want people to go to church.

But this feels a little icky.

This pamphlet thing is based on reality. The Ad Council produced materials like this. Is this what Christianity is?

Vague?

WOMAN: No.

What economic model did Jesus follow?

WOMAN: I don’t think he was all that concerned with economics.

So it’s weird that Christianity gets tied up into all of that stuff. There is still a big part of me that wants that ad there on the table. That is totally cool with the signs the Ad Council plastered on busses and train stations. The commercials on TV and radio. I’m amazed when I see politicians coming together once a year to pray together like at the National Prayer breakfast.

Because it feels like people like myself were represented in America in the mid-1900’s. The issues that I care about are also shared values of the country I live in. At least this whitewashed ideal vision, that ignores the racism and sexism of the era. The wars, just or unjust. Fear of nuclear holocaust. Put that aside, because a lot of us do. We want to imagine those years as ideal. Wholesome. Representative of us.

I want you to focus on that feeling. Of being represented. That’s what were going to be talking about this episode. We’ve already covered the creepy aspects of these marketing campaigns. Today, let’s hone in on how they make us feel. On this desire to feel represented in the public square.

Usually this is where I say that Truce uses journalistic tools to look inside the Christian Church. Today, we’re going to do something different. We’re going to talk, you and I, about an underlying urge that we all feel. The need to feel represented. And the trouble that gets we Christians into. I’m Chris Staron. This is Truce.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

In the Old Testament… the Jewish people went a long time without a king.

They were a people defined by their relationship to God. They were enslaved by the Egyptians and the God delivered them. (Let my people go!). A man named Moses led them out into the wilderness. Toward freedom. It was a long, arduous journey. Only a few people who left Egypt entered into the land of Israel at the end.

Once there they were led by powerful military leaders as they fought the people who lived in the land.

When the Israelites went astray God sent a judge – a person in charge of getting people back in line. Often, in a bloody, ugly way.

Then you get to the book of 1 Samuel. In it we meet the last judge of Israel, a prophet named Samuel. He’s gotten old by chapter 8 and it doesn’t lo ok like his kids are going to be a good replacement. So the elders of Israel come to Samuel and they say…

ELDER: Give us a king and let him judge us.

Samuel did not like this idea. Because God had been their king up to this point. Yes, they had leaders, but not a king. So Samuel prayed. And God replied (this is from the NASB)…

GOD: Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.

And God gives him some warnings to tell the people. I’m paraphrasing these.

SAMUEL: Do you know what kings do? They use your sons to fight their wars. The king will take your daughters to be his servants. He’ll take your land and use it for his purposes. He’s going to collect taxes from you to pay for his government. Your servants will become his. You yourself will have to serve the king. You’re going to regret this decision, but God isn’t going to listen1.

The people didn’t care.

ELDER: We want a king so we can be like other nations. A king that will fight our battles.

They wanted to be like the other nations. And they wanted to feel represented.

Guess what? You follow the Old Testament story and those warnings became realities. They get some decent kings, but many of them are murderous. They took what they wanted. Led them places they shouldn’t be, like to worshipping other gods.

My brother and I think about this story a lot. This desire to be like the other people. The need for representation. The desire to replace God with something else.

Here are some big questions for us today… How are we like the Israelites? How much of our culture war is just us wanting to be represented? Wanting to have the same power that other nations do? Other world views have a leader, we should have one too.

In the Bible, this desire cost them land, their kids, and sometimes their lives to fight in the king’s wars. Today, our desire to feel represented brings us strange bedfellows. Political parties for sure. But also because we’ve been trained to equate Christianity and certain economic systems that are not actually in the Bible. That coupling of Christianity and economics comes from messaging in our history by people life Fifield, Graham, Vereide, and organizations like the Ad Council on the libertarian side. And Social Gospelers like FDR, Charles Sheldon, and Francis Bellamy on the other side of the spectrum.

Look back at the 1950’s, a time when religion was very much in the public eye. A time that Make America Great Again folks hold up as the goal. Eisenhower, himself a Christian, was president. Billy Graham toured the country sharing the gospel, sermons were preached on national television.

A Gallop Poll in 1950 said that 80% of Americans believed the Bible, “was the revealed word of God”. That sounds amazing right? 80%! Like the nation was mostly Christians. Here is where it gets tricky… only 47% could name even one author of the gospels in that Bible2. 47%. There are four gospels in the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Do you know what the authors names were? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

It’s not a hard question. Anyone who has actually read the Bible should know the answer. But most Americans didn’t, even in that supposed golden age. Leaving me to wonder if they weren’t an inch deep and a mile wide. Vast in number, but not actually invested.

We’re heading into a presidential election here in the United States. What do you hear from Christians? Anger. A feeling of not being represented in society. Fear of persecution. The desire to put our person into power.

What do you hear from non-Christians?

Anger. A feeling of not being represented in society. Fear of persecution. The desire to put our person into power.

You see the opportunity there? Our neighbors who maybe don’t believe like we do, are feeling the same things we’re feeling. We’re at a critical moment. Where we can either seek representation, or we can minister to people who feel surprisingly like us.

Here is why I follow Jesus. He’s not concerned about the influence other people can give Him. When He stood before Pilate, He knew who was really in control instead of pandering to get clout. When big crowds gathered, He didn’t sugar coat the truth, and the crowds left. As he walked into Jerusalem for Passover week, the people waved palm fronds and thought he was the military leader they’d been hoping for. The one who would kick the Romans out of Israel so the Jews could have their nation back. Get representation, control over their country that was being ruined by people who did not think and believe like them. But that’s not what He did. Instead of giving them earthly power, He set their souls free.

That’s the real Jesus. And I invite you to follow Him. In this time of contention, name calling, fear, and anger… remember who your real king is. And, while pamphlets on restaurant tables sound nice, and I’m fine with people putting them there, are they being placed because of a genuine desire to share Jesus, or because we are making a public statement. This is my land. I belong here. People like me belong here. Deal with it.

We could go that way. But what could be a better witness than people who don’t seek representation, who don’t need to plant a flag on everything? We could be do that, or we could humbly follow the true king.

11 Samuel 8

2One Nation Under God 68