The funeral service of President Gerald Ford at the National Cathedral last week offered much to reaffirm a faith in divine providence, which is a faith that has been expressed since the earliest days of the republic. Providence is the belief that God governs over the affairs of this world, and He is able to effect events both large and small.
Of the three political speakers, two referenced God’s providence directly. President George H.W. Bush said in the light how Ford was the right man for the moment when he became President, “It is plain to see how the hand of providence spared Jerry in World War II and later two assassination attempts…and directed this good man to lead a life of noble purpose.” Ford’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger observed that a sequence of “unpredictable events” propelled the congressman from Michigan into the highest office in the land to become the first and only man to hold that position who was not elected either President or Vice President. That Ford assumed the mantel so well, at such a crucial time following the Watergate scandal, Kissinger stated, “it’s rightly to be considered providential.”
It wasn’t just in the words spoken that faith in providence was reaffirmed; it was in the hymns song and the prayers prayed as well. The hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” predates the Revolution in this country by many years and by its very title expresses a faith in God’s ability to intervene in the affairs of man. “Eternal Father Strong to Save” was written just prior to the Civil War and again has a title which speaks of God's power to effect events. Among the many prayers prayed was perhaps the most well known prayer in the Christian tradition, the Lord's Prayer, which is really just one long statement regarding God’s providence. “Our Father, who art in heaven…thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” The prayer then focuses our most basic needs in life for bread, forgiveness of sins and help to extend grace to those who wrong us, guidance in our lives and deliverance from the evil present in this world that can so easily overtake us. It ends recognizing God’s place in creation, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.”
Our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence acknowledged this pre-eminent view of God. It held that the “laws of nature and nature’s God” gave the United States the right to declare its independence because of the egregious violations of these laws (which apply to every person in creation) by the British King and Parliament. The Founders ended their declaration by appealing to “The Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions…with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
President Lincoln invoked faith in God’s providence throughout his time in office, and perhaps never more poignantly than in his Second Inaugural Address. As the Civil War appeared to be drawing to a close in the spring of 1865 having gone longer and cost more in life and treasure than any could have anticipated, he observed that “The Almighty has His own purposes.” He then quoted Christ who said "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." Lincoln continued, “If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
To catalog how leaders have appealed to God’s providence throughout the nation’s history such as how George Washington in his inaugural address as the first president expressed his profound gratitude for God’s favorable intervention during the founding the nation, or how President Franklin Roosevelt, in humble recognition of God’s ability to help in the battle, led the nation in prayer the night following the D-Day invasion, or how President Reagan spoke of God’s special calling for America to be a city on a hill shining forth the light of freedom is the subject of a book. It suffices to say that the faith in God’s providence so evidently displayed at President Ford’s funeral tapped into one of the richest veins of America’s heritage.
