God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life - Hardcover

Kengor, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060571411 ISBN 13: 9780060571412

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2004

Synopsis

A presidential historian explores the dramatic influence of Ronald Reagan's religious orientation and spiritual beliefs on his political ideology, policy-making decisions, and attitude toward Soviet communism, in a spiritual biography of the former president. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

"[A] superb book-no interpretation of Ronald Reagan will be complete without reference to this vital work." -- -Stephen Knott, Ronald Reagan Oral History Project, University of Virginia

"In the vast body of Reagan scholarship, what's been missing is a spiritual biography. Kengor has admirably supplied our need."----Robert P. George, Princeton University

"Paul Kengor has written an excellent book which explores a previously neglected aspect of Reagan's life--his religious faith."----Edwin Meese III, Reagan administration Attorney General

"A penetrating history of the President's evolving religious faith and its articulation in different settings during his career."----Kenneth W. Thompson, University of Virginia

"Paul Kengor offers not only a thorough history of Reagan's religious development but a good and sardonic eye for detail."----Marvin Olasky, professor, University of Texas at Austin and editor-in-chief of World magazine

"Paul Kengor's book offers a deeper understanding than can be found in any of the conventional academic literature."----Hugh Heclo, Robinson Professor of Public Affairs, George Mason University

"Paul Kengor takes the reader to depths where no other writer has yet been--Ronald Reagan's very soul. "----Peter Schweizer, author of Reagan's War

"God and Ronald Reagan fundamentally transforms the historical view of Ronald Reagan and his place in the 20th century."----Donald M. Goldstein, co-author of At Dawn We Slept

"Paul Kengor has performed a masterful service by shining a light on this underappreciated but central aspect of Reagan's life."----Steven F. Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan

"For anyone who believes Christianity and politics don't mix needs to read this work on an American president."----David A. Noebel, Summit Ministries

Synopsis:

"He who introduces into public office the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world." -Ronald Reagan, 1967, quoting Benjamin Franklin Long before George W. Bush's efforts to bring faith-based initiatives - and the identification of evil in the world - to the modern presidency, Ronald Reagan was using his own brand of Christianity to influence the course of world events in a conscious and consistent manner. In this bestselling, definitive spiritual biography of our fortieth president, "God and Ronald Reagan", politician historian Paul Kengor presents a meticulously researched, fascinating account of Reagan's life as seen through the lens of his relationship to God, and traces this relationship to its culmination: America's battle against the atheistic Soviet Union. An intensely private man, Reagan kept his personal religious beliefs relatively quiet over the years. But as Kengor shows, Reagan's own words demonstrate that his religious orientation was shaped in his childhood - and was retained with extraordinary consistency throughout his life.

Schooled as a young man in the simple religious ideas of his Protestant mother, Reagan embraced Christianity with the fervor of a lonely boy who had found his first friend. Reagan's earthly father was a distant man who drank heavily and offered little in the way of comfort, so Reagan turned toward a heavenly father, a dependent and accessible God. Eventually, Kengor argues, Reagan's religious framework became a presidential one - and one that ran head-on into an anti-religious war in Moscow. Nothing more strongly clashed with Reagan's belief system than Soviet communism; he saw the victims of Soviet oppression as weary soldiers in the great struggle for faith in the 20th century. To Reagan, the United States was a divinely ordained beacon of freedom - a Shining City on a Hill - and as Kengor conclusively demonstrates, it was this conviction that compelled him to a series of challenges that would eventually bring down Communism once and for all. Blending groundbreaking research and fascinating storytelling, "God and Ronald Reagan", has forever changed our understanding of one of our most influential presidents.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0060571411
• ISBN 13: 9780060571412
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416