Who are we? Harold Stassen

What kind of Baptists are we?

In early 1948, Harold Stassen looked like he was going to be the next President of the United States. Harry Truman's approval rating was in the pits and the Republicans had few other candidates as attractive as Stassen. He was tall, genial, had a radio baritone with a midwestern accent and a political record more progressive than Truman's.

Politics has many strange twists, and New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey won the GOP nomination that summer. And Truman, despite polls that proved he was going to lose, defeated Dewey decisively in November.

Even so, many American Baptists think of Stassen as "Mr. President." He was President of the then American Baptist Convention in 1963. "I have a deep, abiding faith in Jesus Christ as a personal savior," he once told an interviewer. His politics and public policies were staunchly Christian. As the 32-year-old Governor of Minnesota in the 1930's, he ordered the immediate integration of the Minnesota National Guard more than a decade before Truman integrated the U.S. armed forces. He resigned as governor to join the Navy during World War II and found himself a leading candidate for President at war's end. After losing the nomination, he went on to be President Eisenhower's roving ambassador for peace. Later, as a Philadelphia lawyer, he lived across the street from the American Baptist mission center in Valley Forge where he often startled the staff with unannounced visits. He was often seen pushing his own shopping cart in the local Acme market.

From 1960 to 1980, Stassen was a quadrennial candidate for President. A lot of people thought that was funny but American Baptists rarely laughed. We knew how much better off we would have been if he had won. When he died in 2001 at the age of 93, even his most biting critics had stopped snickering. We could have used a President like him.

When we think of the kind of Baptists we try to be, we think of him.