This is a collection of assorted quotations from mostly famous people, past and present, on the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am adding to the collection over time, almost always placing the most recent quotation at the top.
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The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration…
I am rather tired of hearing about our rights… The time is come – it is now – when we ought to hear about the duties and responsibilities of our citizenship…
America’s future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God’s government.”
Peter Marshall (1902-1949; 46 yrs), in a message he gave as chaplain of the U.S. Senate on January 13, 1947. Source William J. Federer’s American Minute
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There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662; 39 years) – French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and philosopher.
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Who stole the Christian nation Patrick Henry said they gave us?
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Patrick Henry (1736-1799), American attorney, politician, first governor of Virginia, orator for independence, and founding father of America. Source: The Trumpet Voice of Freedom by Patrick Henry, p. iii.
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Woodrow Wilson Wasn’t Woke
In these doubtful and anxious days, when all the world is at unrest … the road ahead seems darkened by shadows which portend dangers … Ground for the universal unrest … is not to be found in superficial politics or in mere economic blunders. It probably lies deep at the sources of the spiritual life of our time …
That supreme task, which is nothing less that the salvation of civilization, now faces democracy … We call ours a Christian civilization, a Christian conception of justice … Our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually. It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that spirit.
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921), 28th president of the United States. Wilson made these remarks in 1923, in his last public address, titled “The Road Away from Revolution.” Source: William J. Federer
We cannot get presidents like we used to have because we’re in the minority now. And not a very zealous minority either.
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President William Howard Taft Touted Christianity
Taft saw Christianity as the best environment for the conduct of democracy. I wonder what the current status of his statues is.
No man can study the movement of modern civilization from an impartial standpoint, and not realize that Christianity and the spread of Christianity are the basis of hope of modern civilization in the growth of popular self government. The spirit of Christianity is pure democracy. It is equality of man before God – the equality of man before the law, which is, as I understand it, the most God-like manifestation that man has been able to make.
William Howard Taft (1857-1930), 27th president of the United States, and 10th chief justice of the Supreme Court, the only person to have held both offices. He spoke the words above in a 1908 missionary conference, the year he was elected president. Source: William J. Federer.
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President Herbert Hoover Said America Cannot Survive
without the Gospel of Jesus Christ
American life is built and can alone survive upon…[the] fundamental philosophy announced by the Savior 19 centuries ago.
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), 31st president of the United States. Source: U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of its Roots by David Barton and George Barna, Frontline, 2014, p. 162.
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Even LBJ Said America Was Founded as a Christian Nation
In these last 200 years we have guided the building of our Nation and our society by those principles and precepts brought to earth nearly 2,000 years ago on that first Christmas.
Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973), 36th president of the United States. U-Turn: Restoring America to the Strength of its Roots by David Barton and George Barna, Frontline, 2014, p. 162.
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FDR Speaks in Favor of Christianity in America and Around the World
Roosevelt said all these things in his official capacity as President of the United States of America.
“At the Pan American Conference at Buenos Aires … we discussed … that the Americans might have to become the guardian of Western culture, the protector of Christian civilization.” (Address to the 8th Pan American Scientific Congress, Washington, D.C., May 10, 1940)
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There is another enemy at home … that … mocks at ideals, sneers at sacrifice and pretends that the American people can live by bread alone. If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction. (Statement at Dedication of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, September 2, 1940.)
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“On this day – this American holiday – we are celebrating the rights of free laboring men and women…The preservation of these rights is vitally important now, not only to us who enjoy them – but to the whole future of Christian civilization.” (September 1, 1941)
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“A state of war exists between Brazil, on one hand, and Germany and Italy on the other hand …The action taken today by your Government has hastened the coming of the inevitable victory of freedom over oppression, of Christian religion over the forces of evil and darkness.” (Labor Day, August 22, 1942)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd president of the United States. Source: The American Minute by William J. Federer. Roosevelt also makes a reference to Christian civilization in the first paragraph of his Statement on the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Printing of the English Bible at The American Presidency Project.
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Jesus Christ Is the Hill to Die On
Cast yourself into the arms of Christ, and if you perish, perish there. If you do not, you are sure to perish. If mercy is to be found anywhere, it is there.
Richard Sibbes (1577–1635), an Anglican theologian and “main line” Puritan. Source: William E. Wolfe
Sibbes also said “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” Source: his Wikipedia bio
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JFK Said America and Brazil Are Nations Founded on Christian Ideals
To each of us is entrusted the heavy responsibility of guiding the affairs of a democratic nation founded on Christian ideals.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th president of the United States, writing to the president of Brazil on January 31, 1961. Emphasis added.
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Benjamin Franklin on the Truth of Christianity
Even men who don’t call themselves Christian can be wise enough to know that this is a Christian world.
I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men! And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? —We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that, ‘except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe, that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall be become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages…
I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) Spoken at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia
Although Franklin in these quoted remarks does not explicitly name Jesus Christ or the Bible, it is clear especially by the words that I have emphasized that he is referring to the God of the Bible (“the sacred writings”) – both Old Testament (“except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it” and “the builders of Babel”) and New Testament (“a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice”). More broadly, given the makeup of the Constitutional Convention it is not reasonable to think that any of the attendees thought that Franklin was referring to any God other than the God of the Bible.
No one – and perhaps least of all Franklin himself – considered him a pious man, but even he clearly thought the nation he was helping to build was subject to the Christian God. When did we ever secede from that union?
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This Is a Christian World
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine!”
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905, journalist, and theologian. Emphasis added.
Whether or not you call yourself a Christian has no effect on the fact that this is a Christian world. Jesus Christ is Lord of all (Acts 10:36; Rom 10:12).
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Franklin Roosevelt on America Being a Christian Nation
In America’s God and Country, William J. Federer writes, “In a mid-Atlantic summit with Churchill in the darkest hours of World War II…Roosevelt asked the crew of the American warship to join him in a rousing chorus of the hymn, “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” after having described the United States as…
The lasting concord between men and nations, founded of the principles of Christianity.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd president of the United States. Emphasis added.
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Franklin Roosevelt on His Personal Faith
When asked at a press conference about the roots of his political philosophy, FDR responded simply…
I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd president of the United States. Emphasis added.
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Franklin Roosevelt on Antichrist Forces
We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression, which may attack us from without, and the forces of ignorance and fear which may corrupt us from within.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd president of the United States, on October 28, 1940. Emphasis added.
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Theodore Roosevelt Saw America as a Christian Nation
The civilization of Europe, America and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization, because of victories stretching through the centuries from Charles Martel in the 8th century and those of John Sobieski in the 17th century. During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king, the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any ‘social values’ whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influences are concerned…There are such ‘social values’ today in Europe, America and Australia only because during those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do — that is, to beat back the Moslem invader.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th president of the United States, from his address to the American Sociological Congress, which was included in his book Fear God and Take Your Own Part (1916), bold print added.
Like his relative Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt saw the nations of the world as divided between those that were Christian and those that were not. (See the quote below titled “Franklin Roosevelt on Antichrist Forces.”) Teddy was a Progressive reformer and FDR was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat – neither was conservative. If they thought of America and themselves as Christian, surely everyone to their right did as well. Why then do today’s opponents of America being a Christian nation act like it’s some radical new idea pushed by far-right extremists?
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There Is No Pit So Deep…
Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who survived a Nazi concentration camp in World War II after she and her family had helped shelter Jews in Holland during the Holocaust. After the war, she became a Christian writer and speaker. She traveled widely and the quote below is one of the truths she repeated most often. There is a book (1971) and a movie (1975) about her life, both titled The Hiding Place.
There is no pit is so deep that God’s love is not deeper still; with Jesus even in our darkest moments, the best remains and the very best is yet to be.
Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983). Emphasis added.
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Harry Truman on Jesus Christ
Through Jesus Christ the world will yet be a better and a fairer place. This faith sustains us today as it has sustained mankind for centuries past. This is why the Christmas story, with the bright stars shining and the angels singing, moves us to wonder and stirs our hearts to praise.
Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd president of the United States. Source: Truman Library Institute, “Remarks Upon Lighting the National Community Christmas Tree,” broadcast 5:15 pm, December 24, 1952 (full text). Emphasis added.
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