The Faith of President Gerald R. Ford

TIME Magazine on the faith of Gerald Ford:

We can never know the real story about a President's faith. We only know what he does—or refuses to do—in God's name.

Voters were unwilling to forgive Gerald Ford for his great act of forgiveness, the unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon. But there was another side to the pardon, the presidency and the 1976 campaign that received much less attention, in part because Ford wanted it that way. The contest between Ford and Jimmy Carter was a battle between two born-again Christians—but only one was willing to run as one.

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When Ford became Vice President in the fall of 1973, Zeoli began sending him a weekly devotional memo that would be waiting on Ford's desk on Monday mornings. It always had the same title — "God's Got a Better Idea"—and began with scripture (always from the King James version, Ford's preferred translation) and ended with a prayer. Zeoli sent 146 devotionals in all, every week through Ford's presidency. "Not only were they profound in their meaning and judicious in their selection," Ford said, "I believe they were also divinely inspired." Beyond the memos, Zeoli and Ford would meet privately every four or five weeks for prayer and Bible study. Their conversations took place either in the Oval Office or the family quarters upstairs.

One of his first acts as President was some spiritual housecleaning. Among the more ingeniously cynical inventions of the Nixon Administration was the much publicized White House Church Service, which in addition to providing genuine fellowship for those so inclined, was a prime tool for image building, fund raising, arm twisting and dealmaking for the President's men. Two days after Ford was sworn in, his wife Betty Ford would write in her diary, a little pointedly, "There aren't going to be any more private services in the East Room for a select few." During his first Sunday as President Ford and Betty went to the same church that they had attended for more than 20 years: Immanuel-on-the-Hill in Alexandria.

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On the other hand:

Ford was staunchly pro-abortion, and vocally so to the day of his death: he, like his once-upon-a-time Southern Baptist successor Jimmy Carter, could have effectively fought Roe and possibly even overturned it; he simply had no wish to.

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