Dubious Distinction

Richard Nixon's Sunday services in the White House East Room are as much a social as a religious occasion. They are rather folksy family gatherings of White House staffers and friends; the affairs are generally bland and ecumenical, presided over by a visiting dominie who seeks only the lowest common denomination. By the best White House count, the President himself has actually been to church outside the White House only four times since he took office, but that did not deter the 1970 conference of the Religious Heritage of America from naming him Churchman of the Year. Quaker Nixon got the award in spite of some discreet grumbling inside the nonsectarian organization. Some thought that the East Room services raise uncomfortable questions about the separation of church and state. Others felt that the chosen Churchman of the Year should, after all, be a man who sets foot inside a church somewhat more often than a golfer stuck with a rainy Sunday.

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