When I learned that John A. Stormer died Wednesday afternoon at age 90, my thoughts were not about the role his runaway best-seller "None Dare Call it Treason" played in the genesis of the conservative movement in 1964.
Nor were they about Stormer's odyssey from "cafeteria Christian" and occasional churchgoer to born-again pastor who brought hundreds to the Christian faith.
My thoughts were about how this remarkable man from Florissant, Missouri, could take complex subjects from politics to faith and make them relevant to the casual observer through personal parables.
Stormer once told me that as a young U.S. Air Force officer in 1952, having only a peripheral political interest, he told his superior officer he intended to vote for Dwight Eisenhower because "he was a general and could lead us as president."
"Do you think General Sloan could lead us as president?" Stormer's superior replied, referring to the commanding officer of their unit.
Stormer pondered that point and soon became a fan of Eisenhower's more conservative rival for the Republican nomination, Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio.
Following his discharge and graduation from San Jose State University with a degree in journalism, Stormer settled in Missouri to edit an electronics trade magazine. But his time in the service had left him with the political bug. He got involved in politics and became president of the Missouri Federation of Young Republicans.
Many born-again Christians can cite dramatic and highly personal reasons as the genesis for embracing Christ in adulthood, but not John Stormer. While on a book-signing tour for "None Dare Call It Treason" in 1964, two-pack-a-day smoker Stormer awakened in a hotel room one evening to discover he was out of Camels. It was too late to find a store to buy more.
"I sure had a strong urge for cigarettes in those days," Stormer told me. "But there must have been a God, because only He could have taken that urge away. That was the last cigarette I smoked. And it was the beginning of a change in me."
Within a year, Stormer set his writing career aside, accepted Christ as his savior and was tirelessly preaching the gospel. For more than three decades, he served as pastor of Heritage Baptist Church and superintendent of Faith Christian School in Missouri.
But it is "None Dare Call It Treason" for which Stormer will best be remembered. Self-published by Stormer's own Liberty Bell Press (in his basement) and with 818 footnotes, the book made a powerful case that America was losing the Cold War because its elites in government were sympathetic to Communism.
"John wrote the biggest runaway best-seller since the Bible!" Pat Buchanan, then editorial page writer for the St. Louis Globe Democrat, recalled to Newsmax, "'None Dare Call It Treason' helped propel the movement for Barry Goldwater to victory in the Cow Palace [the site of the 1964 Republican National Convention], the first great triumph of the modern conservative movement."
Buchanan wasn't exaggerating. In Dade County, Florida, the Republican Party passed out 172,000 copies Stormer's book door-to-door.
After becoming a pastor, Stormer devoted most of his life to spreading the faith that he had embraced as an adult. In 1984, he wrote "Growing Up God's Way" as a primer for preparing children for school and life. The book has been translated into Spanish and Russian and is now in its 10th printing.
He also wrote "None Dare Call It Education," condemning the evolution of public education from its early thinker John Dewey to more modern developments such as outcome-based education (a theory which bases education on goals that students must achieve).
Younger conservatives and quite a few politicians discovered "None Dare Call It Treason" and would inevitably seek out the author to discuss his themes about America being sold out by its leaders.
Future conservative political leaders — among them Sen. Jim Inhofe, R.-Okla, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and his brother, former Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R.-Ark. — came to Missouri to see what Stormer had to say
"John Stormer lived a life as God's humble servant," said former Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder. "For 31 years, when our legislature was in session January through May, he drove from his home near St. Louis every week to the state capitol in Jefferson City — 250-mile round trips — to conduct a lunchtime Bible study. He was a kind and gentle soul, and also a steadfast conservative leader in Missouri and nationally."
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