Gotta agree with Bente against Teddy Roosevelt on this one!

Friedrich Bente., “Warum gehen wir zur Kirche?” [Why do we go to church?] Lehre und Wehre 47, no. 10 (October 1901): 310.

Von Präsident Roosevelt wird das schöne Wort mitgetheilt: “Ich gehe nicht zur Kirche, um unterhalten zu werden. Ich gehe, um Gott zu verehren und um meine Christenpflicht zu erfüllen.” — Wenn Roosevelt Lutheraner wäre, so hätte er noch hinzugefügt: ‘Ich gehe zur Kirche, um mir aus dem Munde des Dieners Christi Vergebung meiner Sünden zu holen und meine hungrige und durftige Seele mit dem Evangelio zu speisen und zu tränken.” Allerdings gehen wir Lutheraner in die Kirche, um unterhalten und bewirthet zu werden—aber von Gott und seiner Gnade.

If you don't read German, just imspect T.R.'s reasons for going to church here provided. What's missing?

Theodore Roosevelt's
Nine Reasons Why a Man Should Go to Church

1 In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade.

2 Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling responsibility for others.

3 There are enough holidays for most of us. Sundays differ from other holidays in the fact that there are fifty-two of them every year. Therefore, on Sundays go to church.

4 Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in a man's own house as well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the average man does not thus worship.

5 He may not hear a good sermon at church. He will hear a sermon by a good man who, whith his wife, is engaged all of the week in making hard lives a little easier.

6 He will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible. And if he is not familiar with the Bible he has suffered a loss.

7 He will take part in the singing of some good hymns.

8 He will meet and nod or speak to good, quiet neighbors. He will come away feeling a little more charitable toward all the world, even toward those excessively foolish young men who regard churchgoing as a soft performance.

9 I advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of showing his faith by his works.

"How Firm a Foundation" - reported to be T.R.'s favorite hymn, was sung at the funeral. Hopefully the President was a better theologian in death than in life. M.H.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.