Word: faithful
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...never know the real story about a President's faith. We know only 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...
...Ford's faith was ignited in Grand Rapids, Mich., a center of Dutch Calvinist congregations so strict that even in the late 1950s there were arguments over whether it was appropriate to read the newspaper on the Sabbath. Ford's upbringing was more relaxed. Some Sunday afternoons, he recalled, "I'd just go out and play baseball. Of course, some of my Dutch friends weren't allowed to do that." As a young Michigan Congressman, he met a gospel-film executive named Billy Zeoli, who stopped by Ford's office and gave him a Bible. Over the next few years...
Even as his faith inspired him to save Nixon, he refused to use it to save himself. Ford's discretion would be tested as the 1976 campaign took shape. Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist who taught Sunday school, did mission work, filled in for preachers when they were on vacation and told the crowd at a backyard reception in 1976 that he had been born again. His sister Ruth Carter Stapleton was herself an evangelist who used to minister to reporters in the back of Carter's campaign plane and wrote letters to the faithful enlisting...
Carter's religious appeal inspired Zeoli to propose a counterattack. "I said, 'Jerry, look, Carter's a fine guy, a fine Christian. But nobody knows you're a Christian. Let's put a book together about your faith, and about how God has used...
...Ford flatly refused. "You told me a long time ago we're not going to take advantage of our faith to get elected," he reminded Zeoli. Ford declined to allow Zeoli to lend his name to preachers' committees for Ford. "He thought he'd be using his chaplain to get votes," Zeoli recalled. Ford later revealed that he found Carter's discussion of his faith unsettling. "I have always felt a closeness to God and have looked to a higher being for guidance and support," Ford explained, "but I didn't think it was appropriate to advertise my religious beliefs...