[digg-reddit-me]During the 1952 campaign for the presidency, word leaked that Dwight D. Eisenhower had never been baptized. Though he considered himself a Christian, he had never been inducted into a faith. He responded at the time by saying he would be baptized when he was able to get around to it – probably after his election. And so, on February 1, 1953, twelve days after his Inauguration, President Eisenhower was baptized, the only president to be baptized in office, and formally “staked down” his faith at the National Presbyterian Church on Washington’s Connecticut Avenue.

It apparently was an age in which religion was taken seriously – but not in the dogmatic way it is today. After all, Eisenhower, of “Oh, goddammit, we forgot the silent prayer” fame, was able to be judged not on his private religious acts, but on his public record.

It might be nice to reintroduce that as the standard again.

Like Loading...