1933-1945
Roosevelt was born on Jan. 30, 1883, and christened two months later at St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, N.Y. Roosevelt would remain a communicant in the Episcopal Church his entire life, and would later be elected a vestryman and eventually senior warden.
As a teenager he participated in missionary work organized by his boarding school, including on multiple occasions playing organ at rural church services. In his adult life, however, Roosevelt seldom attended church -- a source of aggravation to his wife, Eleanor. In a 1918 diary entry, she noted that his recent attendance two weeks in a row was surely a "great sacrifice to please me." According to Eleanor, Roosevelt was more likely to go out golfing with his friends on Sunday morning than he was to be found in prayer.
Despite his lack of church attendance, Roosevelt maintained a personal inner faith. According to Eleanor, he "had a strong religious feeling and his religion was a very personal one. I think he actually felt he could ask God for guidance and receive it. ... He never talked about his religion or his beliefs and never seemed to have any intellectual difficulties about what he believed." Although less inclined to publicly invoke religious imagery than some of his predecessors, Roosevelt did reference Christian concepts in many of his speeches. He mentioned God in all four of his inaugural addresses, asking for divine guidance through difficult times.
Roosevelt asserted the importance of the Bible in American history, declaring: "We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Its teaching, as has been wisely suggested, is ploughed into the very heart of the race." In his famous 1941 State of the Union address, Roosevelt included freedom of religion as one of the essential "four freedoms" that he felt were becoming increasingly threatened by the turmoil abroad.
Roosevelt was born on Jan. 30, 1883, and christened two months later at St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, N.Y. Roosevelt would remain a communicant in the Episcopal Church his entire life, and would later be elected a vestryman and eventually senior warden.
As a teenager he participated in missionary work organized by his boarding school, including on multiple occasions playing organ at rural church services. In his adult life, however, Roosevelt seldom attended church -- a source of aggravation to his wife, Eleanor. In a 1918 diary entry, she noted that his recent attendance two weeks in a row was surely a "great sacrifice to please me." According to Eleanor, Roosevelt was more likely to go out golfing with his friends on Sunday morning than he was to be found in prayer.
Despite his lack of church attendance, Roosevelt maintained a personal inner faith. According to Eleanor, he "had a strong religious feeling and his religion was a very personal one. I think he actually felt he could ask God for guidance and receive it. ... He never talked about his religion or his beliefs and never seemed to have any intellectual difficulties about what he believed." Although less inclined to publicly invoke religious imagery than some of his predecessors, Roosevelt did reference Christian concepts in many of his speeches. He mentioned God in all four of his inaugural addresses, asking for divine guidance through difficult times.
Roosevelt asserted the importance of the Bible in American history, declaring: "We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Its teaching, as has been wisely suggested, is ploughed into the very heart of the race." In his famous 1941 State of the Union address, Roosevelt included freedom of religion as one of the essential "four freedoms" that he felt were becoming increasingly threatened by the turmoil abroad.
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