A New President

TimeWatch Editorial
March 10, 2016

The year was 1960. The election of the new president was full steam ahead. One of the candidates running for office was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a catholic. This was a unique struggle. Protestant denominations and influential Protestant leaders came together with the Republican Party and Richard M. Nixon to stop the possibility of a Kennedy Presidency. Men like the Rev. Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale along with many other Protestant ministers and church leaders set out to make sure that everyone understood that a catholic could never be trusted to obey or defend the Constitution of the United States. Protestants were still protesting then. On Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave a major speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers, on the issue of his religion. At the time, many Protestants questioned whether Kennedy's Roman Catholic faith would allow him to make important national decisions as president independent of the church. Kennedy addressed those concerns before a skeptical audience of Protestant clergy. Here are some of his arguments and commitments.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.” Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy

This was indeed the first speech of its kind, given by a candidate running for office. The speech caused Kennedy to be chided by writers in Catholic journals who believed that he compromised his religious commitment. Kennedy continued:

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy

The speech issued forth from a clear understanding of the Constitution of the United States. The detail of his delivery reveals the source of some of the anger that was fostered against him. His life was suddenly in jeopardy because of his apparent commitment to what could only be described as a protestant ethic. He further detailed his understanding of the source of the Constitutional stipulation.

“For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.” Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy

At first it appeared that the speech would end with the accuracy of its beginning, but alas that was too much to hope for. His conclusion met with the approval of those to whom he spoke but the prediction was indeed inaccurate.

“Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.” Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy

Inaccurate is indeed an understatement. The final condition will be as expressed in the book Testimonies Volume 5, page 712.

“When our nation shall so abjure the principles of its government as to enact a Sunday law, Protestantism will in this act join hands with popery; it will be nothing else than giving life to the tyranny which has long been eagerly watching its opportunity to spring again into active despotism.” --Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 712.

Cameron A. Bowen