As Ronald Reagan appealed to the essential goodness of Americans, he articulated a conception of God that was singularly American. Reagan's God was not specifically the God of the Bible, but the supreme being of American civil religion.
When Reagan gave his 1974 speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee, he expressed his belief that "there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom." He used the same imagery when he gave his 1980 nomination speech on the floor of the Republican National Convention and when he spoke at the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty in New York City in 1986.
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