Did you know that Eisenhower was a JW before he switched to being Presbyterian?

Question

I didn't know that!

JW = Jehovah Witnesses

Foxtrot - I stand corrected

Answer 1

Admittedly, the name "Jehovah's Witnesses" was not adopted by the religion until 1931, about twenty years after Dwight Eisenhower left his parents' home and regular association with the religion known for its distribution of 'The Watchtower'.

Still, it is rarely noted that for decades Eisenhower listed his religion generically as "Christian" and finally join a specific church less than a month before beginning his campaign for President of the United States. Reportedly, both of Eisenhower's inaugurations used a bible provided by his Jehovah's Witness mother, which was an edition distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses and which included the name "Jehovah" throughout.

Jehovah's Witnesses have never pretended that the 34th President of the United States was ever himself a practicing Jehovah's Witness (or Bible Student, as they were known formerly). However, there seems little purpose in ignoring the influence that this Christian religion must have had on Dwight Eisenhower throughout his life, especially during his mother's lifetime.

The Eisenhower Presidential Library archives contain some interesting information on the family's association with Jehovah's Witnesses. Documents in the archive there date back only to 1920, but anecdotal and other evidence indicates that the future President's family was associated with the religion while he was still in the household.
http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/listofholdingshtml/listofholdingsJ/jehovahwitnessesabilenecongregation.pdf

As of May 2007, the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses contains a single quote from Dwight Eisenhower.
http://watchtower.org/e/20031008/article_01.htm

Answer 2

Is that right?
I did not know that either.
Well you must have read that in wikipedia, except there, it says that dwight's parents were Witnesses, except, well, that would be impossible because at the time frame mentioned in the wikipedia article, there was no such thing as Jehovah's Witnesses. At the time mentioned they were simply known as "International Bible Students".
As this is the case the record also shows that the young person Dwight, was not actually a Bible student, his mother and father were though.
So, now that I have researched your proclaimation, I must wonder, why did you feel it necessary to misrepresent the facts?

Answer 3

There's a lot people don't know about him, including that he was a seamstress and clothing designer.

Something you may also not know is that he commanded the squad of solders that was ordered to fire upon WWI vets who were protesting in Washington over not getting their release bonuses, ten years after the end of the war.

Since the Watchtower doesn't count children as a part of its active membership, he was not a witness. It should be noted that despite claims otherwise that witnesses are to turn their backs on family who don't join, he had a good relationship with his mother.

Answer 4

I've read several biographies on Ike. All of them state that his parents were members of one of the branches of the Mennonites/Amish branch of Protestantism. They may have converted to the JW after Ike left for West Point. For the most part Ike got a standard Protestant upbringing

Answer 5

In name only, and mostly because of his mother.

JW's are opposed to serving in the military (don't want to protect the freedom's they enjoy so much), so by the time he was accepted to West Point, the JW's more or less abandoned them, or they abandoned the JW's.

Answer 6

I barely know who he is. Isn't he a president or something? It is interesting that he was once a Jehova Witness, though.

Answer 7

Sorry to disapoint you, it was his Mother that was a Jehovah Witness, not the President.

Milton Eisenhower, brother of former U.S. President Eisenhower, in a recent issue of Modern Maturity magazine, recalls that “Mother and Father knew the Bible from one end to the other. In fact, Mother was her own concordance: Without using one, she could turn to the particular scriptural passage she wanted. . . . We had an ideal home for I never heard an unkind word between Father and Mother. They lived by the cardinal concepts of the Judaic-Christian religion.” The elder Mrs. Eisenhower (Ida) was one of Jehovah’s witnesses.

From a soldier trying to serve God in a military environment, in view of what I had learned from Isaiah 2:4 and related scriptures. A woman said the below to this soldier.

“Do you know who my neighbor is?” she asked. “It’s General Eisenhower’s mother! She’s one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Would you like her to write you?”

“I sure would!” I exclaimed.

HELP FROM EISENHOWER’S MOTHER

Toward the end of August we were on maneuvers in Colorado. I refused guard duty and was called to the headquarters tent. Halfway up the path I was told to sit under a juniper tree until called. While I was waiting, a soldier cried, “Mail call!” and someone brought me a letter. I had just finished reading it when I was told to report.

As I entered the headquarters tent, where all the “top brass” had gathered, I didn’t salute. One of the officers said: “Don’t you salute your superiors?”

“No, Sir.”

“Why not?”

Respectfully, I gave my reasons, based on my understanding of the Bible. At that the officer said: “General Eisenhower ought to line you Jehovah’s Witnesses up and shoot you all!”

“Do you think he would shoot his own mother, Sir?” I asked.

“What do you mean by that?” he shot back.

Reaching in my pocket and taking out Sister Eisenhower’s letter, I handed it to him. “I just received this letter from the General’s mother while waiting for you to call me.”

As he read the letter, the other officers also gathered around to look at it. Thoughtfully, and with a greatly changed attitude, he handed it back to me. “Get back to ranks,” he said, “I don’t want to get mixed up with the General’s mother.”

Ida Eisenhower, whose son later became president of the United States, was, at the time, 82 years of age. From reading her letter, you can see that for most of her life she had been one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The timing of her letter’s arrival could not have been better! Her encouragement was just what I needed.

Mrs. Ida Eisenhower, in a letter dated August 20, 1944, to American soldier Richard Boeckel, who had gotten into difficulty with his superiors because of his Scriptural stand regarding war, wrote: “As the mother of General Eisenhower and as a witness of and for the Great Jehovah of Hosts (I have been such for the past 49 years) I am pleased to write you to urge you to faithfulness.” And that is also why, when her son Ike was about to graduate from the West Point Military Academy in 1915, she gave him an American Standard Version Bible, which uses Jehovah's name thousands of times.

as quoted in the Detroit Free Press, December 19, 1956:

“President Eisenhower, whose mother once sold Bible tracts for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, is looking for a delicate way to clear the family name of this affiliation. He is sensitive about the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in saluting the flag or serving under arms, Inside story is that the President’s mother was influenced in her old age by a nurse who belonged to the sect. Being Bible-minded, Mrs. Eisenhower cheerfully agreed to help the Jehovah’s Witnesses peddle Bible tracts, Now the Eisenhower brothers would like to find a graceful way to announce that their mother was not, at heart, a Jehovah’s Witness.”

“Not, at heart, a Jehovah’s Witness,” and only “in her old age.” How could that be true, when she wrote Boeckel in 1944 that she was “a witness of and for the Great Jehovah of Hosts (I have been such for the past 49 years)”?

Answer 8

I still do not know that! Cite your source.

Besides even if he was a JW and left that false religion it just proves that he was smart enough to be President.

Answer 9

Well as I understand/understood it his mother at one point was.

Answer 10

Nope, I did not know that. Very interesting.