Church Attendance Quotes
Eisenhower did not go to church on Sundays. He was brought up in a Bible Reading, Christian Family. When he served under MacArthur in the Army, MacArthur often criticized him for not attending church. Eisenhower was the only President in American history who did not belong to any church at the time he was elected. He was not anti-religious at all and thought religion was a very important part of the American Way of life. He started Cabinet Meetings with a Silent Prayer, but he himself was not an observant Christian. In this sense he was very much like a number of our Founding Fathers, like Jefferson, Franklin and John Adams for example.
America is one of the few countries where formal religious affiliation and church going has increased in the last centuries. Religiosity has decreased throughout Europe and most of the rest of the world. In 1776 however, compared to the rest of the world, religiosity in the American Colonies was very sparce, especially since a number of the colonies had been founded by religious sects to obtain religious freedom. Ironically, America has become a more religious nation in large part because it did NOT have an established religion and all were free to worship or not as they saw fit. No other nation has spawned as many new religions in modern times. Mormonism, Evangelicals, Christian Science are just a few. There was room and freedom for new religions to arise.
