The Free of Exercise Religion: Religion and New Deal Liberalism at War

This paper will underscore the decisive shift  that took place in World War II regarding American civil religion, specifically the unprecedented expansion in the role of the federal government in promoting the free exercise of religion among American servicemen/servicewomen.   This entailed an exponential increase in the size of the chaplaincy, as well as for the first time significant federal appropriations to build chapels on military bases.  The Roosevelt Administration encouraged religiously based organizations to form the United States Organization (USO) in order to provide wholesome recreation for GIs and to promote religious observance and identity. In making the case for war in 1941 Franklin Roosevelt rhetorically emphasized the religious character of the United States and promoted the value of tolerance and ecumenical understanding.  This paper will contribute to the growing impact of the war on New Deal liberalism and suggests that policies regarding religion and the military show an activist government.  There were clashes among New Dealers about the role of the federal government in promoting religion with many wanting to concentrate recreational services in the hands of the WPA, instead of the emergent USO, but they were overruled by FDR.

The expansion of federal spending on religion promoted a vision of religious pluralism that lead to a chaplaincy that welcomed large numbers of Roman Catholic priests and rabbis to the ranks.  The USO developed policies that both encouraged religious constituent groups to serve their religious adherents (i.e., Jewish Welfare Board, YMCA) while still avoiding sectarian discrimination.  These efforts remained part of a wider effort to promote morale among GIs, ensure parents their sons and daughters would not be corrupted by military service, and discourage vice (alcoholism, prostitution, gambling).   It also sparked dissension by evangelical Christians, and Orthodox Jews who were often at odds with this ecumenical ethos.