National Affairs: Faith Staked Down

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In his long military career, shifting about from post to post, Dwight Eisenhower worshiped as a Protestant who belonged to no particular church. His devout, Bible-quoting parents reared him as one of the Brethren in Christ; they believed in baptism only when individuals were old enough to decide for themselves, and the Eisenhower brothers do not remember being baptized as children. In 1948, while president of Columbia University, Eisenhower spoke of himself as "one of the most deeply religious men I know." Though not attached to any "sect or organization," he often expresses the conviction that democracy cannot exist without religion.

This week President and Mrs. Eisenhower slipped quietly into the National Presbyterian Church on Washington's Connecticut Avenue. The church's board of sessions met with them in private. Their Christian faith was formally attested. The President, after baptism and confirmation, was received into the congregation. His wife, a Presbyterian by childhood baptism, was received with him. The ceremony was completed at the church's 9 a.m. Sunday service, when the Eisenhowers received communion.*

"A man of simple faith, who is sincere in his religious doctrine," said the National Presbyterian's minister, the Rev. Edward L. R. Elson, of his new communicant. Eisenhower, he added, had at last "staked down his faith—this is his home church now."