Franklin Delano Roosevelt1945-1953

becoming a member of the First Baptist Church in Grandview, Mo. He would remain a member of the church his entire life, though his attendance at Sunday services became increasingly rare as he grew older.
As president, Truman made frequent references to religion and Christianity in his public speeches. On April 16, 1945, in a statement before a joint session of Congress, Truman asked God for guidance, saying, "I ask only to be a good and faithful servant of my Lord and my people." Truman repeatedly referred to America as a "Christian nation" and declared that it "was established by men who believed in God. You will see that our Founding Fathers believed that God created this nation. And I believe it, too."
But Truman also believed in the importance of religious freedom and displayed respect for all faiths. In a letter written after his time as president, he stated: "Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists and Confucians worship the same God as the Christians say they do. He is all seeing, all hearing and all knowing. Nothing, not even the sparrow or the smallest bug escapes His notice."
Truman viewed the Cold War, which escalated in intensity throughout his time as president, as essentially a moral conflict. He believed that communism was "a tyranny led by a small group who have abandoned their faith in God. These tyrants have forsaken ethical and moral beliefs." Truman saw religion as instrumental in combating communism's spread, and so he attempted to start a global "Campaign of Truth." In a 1947 letter to his wife, Truman explained his plans: "We are talking to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop at the head of the Lutheran Church, the Metropolitan of the Greek Church at Istanbul, and the pope. I may send him to see the top Buddhist and the Grand Lama of Tibet. If I can mobilize the people who believe in a moral world against the Bolshevik materialists, who believe as Henry Wallace does 'that the end justifies the means' -- we can win this fight."
Privately, Truman's views on religion were somewhat idiosyncratic. In a 1911 letter to his wife, he wrote that Baptists "do not want a person to go to shows or dance or do anything for a good time. Well, I like to do all those things and play cards besides. So you see I am not very strong as a Baptist. ... I believe in people living what they believe and talking afterwards."
Truman once stated outright that he was "not a religious man." When he met with the evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham in 1950, he cut the meeting short in response to being told by Graham that he needed "faith in Christ and His death on the Cross." Truman would later denounce Graham as a "counterfeit" in his autobiography, Plain Speaking.
Born into a Baptist family in Lamar, Mo., on May 8, 1884, Truman attended church from a young age. He later claimed to have read the entire Bible twice through before starting school. He was baptized at age 18,