Phil Brennan and NewsMax Staff
Thursday, June 10, 2004

Part one: Forewarned of Shooting. Part two: Mother Set Example. Part three: Finding God in Hollywood. The final part follows:

If there is one central theme of “God and Reagan,” it is this: The defeat of communism was due largely to Reagan’s faith.

He believed that the battle between communism and the West was not a political struggle but a spiritual one.

It was his faith that led him from his earliest days to see the communist empire as an evil that must be fought and eliminated. When he called the U.S.S.R. an “evil empire,” he meant evil in the biblical sense.

His main objection to communism was not based on economic arguments, though he believed it was a failing system. He believed it was dangerous because it banned God. As Kengor quotes Dostoyevsky, “If God does not exist, everything is permissible.”

Reagan’s fears about communism were embedded in his mind by reading Whittaker Chambers’ classic autobiography, “Witness,” published in the 1950s.

Chambers had been a communist beginning in the 1930s, when it was in vogue to be one. He bolted the party and became a government witness against his fellow communists, some of whom had infiltrated the U.S. government, including State Department official Alger Hiss.

In “Witness,” Chambers saw the battle with communism as a spiritual struggle. That hit a nerve in Reagan, and the book became his second bible.

Writes Kengor, “‘Witness’ was the one book that most profoundly shaped his political consciousness as an adult.” Friends said Reagan could recite passages verbatim and often used them in his speeches.

Chambers wrote that he saw in communism “the focus of the concentrated evil of our time.” Kengor sees in those words the genesis of Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union as an evil empire.

Spiritual Revival

Reagan saw his own political crusade as a spiritual revival and frequently spoke of the need for a spiritual revival in America.

He thought that the decline of Western civilization could be thwarted only by America’s spirituality. He frequently quoted Pope Pius XII: “Into the hands of America, God has placed an afflicted mankind.” Protestant Reagan made fast friends in the Vatican for his spiritual struggle against communism.

Kengor details how Reagan made a secret alliance with the pope to undermine communism. The church became an ally in U.S. efforts to undermine totalitarianism, not only in the pope’s native Poland but also in stopping the spread of communism in Latin America, especially in Nicaragua.

The turning point in Reagan’s war with the Soviets was the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the Soviet general secretary in 1986.

Reagan thought Gorbachev was different. His frequent references to God made Reagan believe that the communist leader was a secret Christian.

After meeting Gorbachev, an excited Reagan told his aide Michael Deaver, “He believes.” He explained to Deaver that he had no doubt Gorbachev was a believer in God, a “higher power.”

For more details on this report and Paul Kengor's book, "God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life," click here.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

NewsMax Scoops

Ronald Reagan