Posted on 04/04/2009 9:58:44 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A close aide to Ronald Reagan has claimed that the former US president tried to convert the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Christianity.
A new biography that draws on recently declassified documents discloses a secret exchange between the two leaders that left at least one official present convinced that Reagan had tried to persuade his counterpart of God's existence.
The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, by the former Los Angeles Times reporter James Mann, provides fresh insight into the former US president's religious convictions and the role they played in foreign policy. Reagan had apparently reached a conviction, which has since become well-documented, that Mr Gorbachev was a "closet Christian" after hearing the Soviet leader use the expression "God bless".
Advisers told Reagan not to read too much into the expression. Colin Powell, the national security adviser, told the president: "Don't see this as an expression of religious faith. It's almost idiomatic. He's not ready to get down on his knees for you."
But during their final summit meeting in Moscow in May, 1988, Reagan opened what appeared to be a pre-planned discussion about God.
Reagan took the opportunity he sought when Mr Gorbachev disclosed that he had been baptised into the Russian Orthodox faith by his mother but now had no religious belief.
He started by telling Mr Gorbachev a tale about a wounded Russian soldier during the Second World War who turned to God just before he died even though he had been raised an atheist.
Reagan later disclosed that his son was also an unbeliever. "The president concluded that there was one thing he had long yearned to do for his atheist son," according to the declassified minutes of the meeting.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Preach it brother!
Which son? Ron?
President Reagan was no doubt referring to his namesake, Ron Jr., who is IMHO, a disgrace to the Reagan name.
Somebody should try to convert Obama to christianity.
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I think we'll see Ronald Reagan again, someday.
I can just visualize Zer0 doing this with Pooty-Poot.(s/o)
So now we have a president so arrogant and stupid enough to do everything he can against a whole civilization? Our civilization is bigger than one ignorant man.
No Christian could possibly take being called the “Messiah” so lightly (even in jest). That would be probably the worst possible insult for a true believer, but Obama almost seems to relish it.
You have to understand, that followers of Liberation theology do not believe in the divinity of Christ. They only believe in the historical existence of Christ as a leader and teacher.
>> They will never convert.
Everyone will convert. The only question is, how long will it take? Every knee will bow — eventually.
SnakeDoc
That’s what Franklin Graham tried to do or at least was accused of.
What’s next? Obama trying to convert Putin to Islam?
This is in the Michael Deaver book. Reagan came out of the private meeting with Gorbachev and whispered to Deaver, “He believes.”
Well at least Reagan was saved. It’s very clear from Michael Reagan’s eulogy about his father. So much better than the eulogy from unsaved Ron Reagan. Amazing how the adopted son became born again yet the biological son did not. It must have caused pain and sadness in Mr. Reagan.
Reagan saw his destiny as the one to bring down Communism. He saw Communism as a great evil, from when he was a young boy, because it separated man from God.
When he called Russia the Evil Empire in 1983, the collective heads of the Left exploded, but it wasn’t just a game to him.
President Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II worked in tandem to bring down the USSR. The result was that over 500 million people in Eastern Europe and Central Asia were freed.
The first 35 years of my life were spent in the shadow of a US-USSR nuclear showdown, that no one thought would end peacefully. God was merciful, and I believe he used Ronald Reagan as His point man to take the yoke of Russian rule from the backs of hundreds of millions of people.
The role of religion and belief in Christ was the foundation of Reagan’s core. He was true to that his entire political career.
The shame of it all is that 20 years to the day after he left office, we inaugurated a closet Muslim America hater to the Presidency.
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