Religion: Too Darned Dignified

Be strong, and quit yourselves like men . . . and fight.

—I Samuel 4:9

Dwight Eisenhower and his wife dropped into the chapel at Denver’s Lowry Air Force Base last week and listened to a forcefully delivered sermon on that theme. The chaplain retold the rugged Old Testament story of how the Israelites, trusting in the sacred ark of the covenant as a magic talisman, had fought slackly against the Philistines, and of how the Philistines smote 30,000 Israelites by following the sturdy advice of I Samuel 4:9. The chaplain’s point: too many rely for help and salvation on religious symbols and make too little personal effort toward faith.

Afterward, chatting over coffee and pecan rolls at an officers’ club reception on the air base, Ike Eisenhower gave the sermon his endorsement, and told a little about his own taste in preaching: “Mamie and I were having an argument about what denomination the chaplain belonged to. Mamie thought he was an Episcopalian. I knew he wasn’t a Presbyterian when he said ‘trespasses’ instead of ‘debts’ in the Lord’s Prayer. But I knew he wasn’t an Episcopalian. They are too darn dignified. I like to be enthusiastic.”

The chaplain was Lieut. Colonel Warren E. Ferguson, 38, a veteran of the Normandy and northern France campaigns who holds the Silver Star and Purple Heart, and a Southern Baptist who did his prewar preaching in Tupelo, Miss.