Assassination Sermons: Mourning JFK and Restoring Church Authority

Abstract

In the days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, “[i]t was almost as if the whole people bowed their head and America, for a time, became a church,” in the words of George Cornell, Associated Press religion writer.2 American churches were full. Regular services were held on Sunday morning, November 24, 1963, often to standing-room-only crowds. According to estimates at the time, more Americans attended church the Sunday after Kennedy's assassination than on any other day in American history.3 But George Cornell's image of the nation as a church referred to more than simply a large number of people in the pews. A churchlike silence also fell over most of the United States on Friday, November 22, 1963. By midafternoon, movie theaters, restaurants, and many stores were closed. Broadway shows were dark, and Ivy League football games were canceled.4 Even Jack Ruby, we now know, closed his strip club that night.