How Religion Entered Modern Politics
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency is often remembered as the moment religion became more visible in American public life. During his years in office, under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and In God We Trust became the national motto. To many people, these changes looked like a natural response to the Cold War, a way to separate the United States from officially atheist Soviet communism.
But the movement began earlier and closer to home. Its roots reached back to the 1930s, when major business leaders were alarmed by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. They feared government regulation, stronger labor unions, and a public mood that blamed big business for the Great Depression. In response, they looked for a new moral language that could defend free enterprise more effectively than ordinary political arguments.
They found that language in religion. Working with sympathetic ministers, they promoted the idea that personal freedom, private property, and faith all belonged together. Government intervention, in this view, was not just bad economics. It was also a violation of moral and spiritual truth.
This message spread with remarkable success. It was repeated in churches, newspapers, radio programs, public ceremonies, and political speeches. Over time, many Americans came to see religious language in public life not as something new, but as something timeless. That was the movement’s greatest achievement: it made a recent political project feel like ancient national tradition.
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