Roosevelt talked a great deal about religion. Biographer Edmund Morris states:

When consoling bereaved people, he would awkwardly invoke 'unseen and unknown powers.'Aside from a few clichés of Protestant rhetoric, the gospel he preached had always been political and pragmatic. He was inspired less by the Passion of Christ than by the Golden Rule—that appeal to reason amounting, in his mind, to a worldly rather than heavenly law.[358]
Roosevelt publicly encouraged church attendance and was a conscientious churchgoer himself. When gas rationing was introduced during the First World War, he walked the three miles from his home at Sagamore Hill to the local church and back, even after a serious operation had made it difficult for him to travel by foot.[359] It was said that Roosevelt "allowed no engagement to keep him from going to church," and he remained a fervent advocate of the Bible throughout his adult life.[360] According to Christian F. Reisner, "Religion was as natural to Mr. Roosevelt as breathing,"[361] and when the travel library for Roosevelt's famous Smithsonian-sponsored African expedition was being assembled, the Bible was, according to his sister, "the first book selected.