Alan Keyes
September 13, 1997
Atlanta, Georgia

Thank you. Praise God. Thank you very much.

I gotta tell you, it wouldn't be Fall without my visit to the Road to Victory Conference. You can always tell that the real season of true activity begins, and I'm glad to come and refresh my sense of what is really going on in the deep and decent heart of the American people. Because that is what you represent.

I come today, of course, at the end of a period--this last week has been fascinating. Because we have been in the midst of a time when, inevitably, on account of God's choice to call one of his servants home, we have been impressed, haven't we, with the difference between those who, however their lives may be, are out there serving the world's understanding of what is best and those who have served God's understanding.

I think we've also been pretty impressed with the fact that the folks who call themselves the "mainstream media" in this country seem to have their priorities all screwed up, all messed up. One of them even went so far, on the day that Mother Theresa died, he was in the midst of gushing about . . . they had been gushing about Princess Diana for quite a while, and then toward the end of their little broadcast they said "another good and notable woman passed away."

But isn't it wonderful to know--what I know you all certainly know; what I know we act upon, in our humble ways, and that is the belief that when all is said and done, we don't have to worry about what they say or what they write or what they think or what standards they hold up. Because like the Mother who was just called home, we shall live our lives according to the standard of God--judging by how faithful we are to his will, not how successful they tell us we'll be!

But these are words I surely don't have to speak in present company. Because for the sake of that faithfulness all of you have gathered together these past years, and have done a great work and continue to do a great work of transformation in American life. To such an extent, as a matter of fact, that things that were hardly to be spoken of on the public scene in America a few years ago, when Pat Robertson first stood up to run for office. . . . Even a short time ago when I threw my hat into the ring--(you told) people that the number one challenge facing this nation was the decay and corruption of its moral heart, and they'd turn the cameras off and look somewhere else. It was all talk of budgets and taxes and finances and this was going to solve America's problems.

Well I'm proud to report, and glad and pleased to tell you that your progress has been great. You know that we must be making headway, because now all the politicians, up and down this land, feel they have to lie about their commitment to the moral priorities!

We have come to an age--we have come to a time--when above all, I think, folks need to pray to our Lord and to our Father God for discernment. Because the truth is out. The American people have awakened to it. They have realized that, yes, indeed, the crime and the violence, and the family disintegration, and the deterioration in schools and in the behavior of our young people--they have realized that every last bit of it can be traced to the moral decay and corruption that besets this society. They have awakened to that truth, and finally they begin to demand ACTION to turn things around.

But as that becomes the case--and it starts to show up in all the phony polls and the focus groups that these folks depend on to determine their position. They invite folks to sit down and talk with them: "Tell me how I can talk to these people." "What should I say about these things?"

When somebody sits me down and asks me what they should say about an issue--for instance, like abortion--I know right away that whatever it is they think they should say, I'm not the one who is going to tell it to them. It seems to me that these great issues of our time have been out there for long enough. The challenge has been clear, the evil has been palpable for long enough that those who stand up to bid for leadership in this land ought by now to know what is in their hearts, and all they've got to do is speak it.

And I think we have to recognize too that if that is going to happen, we have to keep our priorities straight. I think it is really all a matter of priorities, you know. Some people think it's a laundry list of things to do: "Let's get a little tax credit for the families; then we can claim to be for families." I love it, the way politicians want to take huge credit when they figure out a way to let us keep some of our own money. I don't know about you, but I don't feel particularly grateful to them when they say that they are going to let me keep some of my own money. As a matter of fact, I begin to suspect after a while that that is simply another form of manipulation--getting me to provide the wherewithal to forge the chains of my own dependency. That is not what America is supposed to be about.

And they can preach all kinds of agendas these days, and forward things they say are important. I'm wondering, though--because people suspect that folks like me, we have litmus tests and all this? I think I probably do. I think I probably do. It's a little like the litmus test that Mother Theresa applied when she spoke at the famous prayer breakfast sometime back. Now I have read an account by Chuck Colson, who is a man whose life certainly leads me to believe what he says. And he says that as she was coming away from that speech, Mr. Clinton was there, and offered her his hand. And she didn't shake his hand.

Instead, she apparently thrust her finger toward his chest, and said what I think needs to be the refrain as we think through our priorities. She did not care for his supposed power and pretension. She did not care for his worldly position. She did not care for any of that. She spoke simply the truth that ought to be, if we understand it, still at the topmost priority of our moral agenda in this land. She said simply, forthrightly, and clearly: "Stop killing the babies!" That's what she said.

If we in fact care about restoring the strength of our families, then we had better care about removing finally that evil principle which poisons the hearts of mothers against their babes in the womb, which turns the hearts of fathers from their offspring in the womb.

Do you want strong families? Then stop killing the babies!

Do you want to reduce the propensity to crime and violence and disrespect for life that runs now too rampant in our schools, and in the lives of our teen-age young? Then stop killing the babies!

And I'll tell you, I am myself not going to be taken in by anybody who says that they are pro-family, and want to promote the moral renewal of this country, if they are not out there on the front lines, every day, in front of every audience reminding this country that there will be no moral renewal as long as we have writ large, by Supreme Court dictate, a principle of evil that shears away the rights of innocent unborn children in the womb!

I am pleased to see--and I certainly share in--the attention that the leaders in the Christian Coalition nationally have been giving to the issue of the persecution of Christians around the world. It's an issue I have had a long interest in myself, at least partly because I worked on African affairs and was deeply struck with the persecution of Christian people in places like Sudan. I do believe that we need to unite in prayer and in action to make sure that we do not abandon to the not-so-tender mercies of despotism, whether in China or Sudan or anywhere in the world, the physical bodies of our brethren in Christ.

But I think we also need to be careful about something. We need to remember the history of this faith. It is a faith that from the beginning made people prey to the persecution of their bodies. But do you know something? As I recall it, that was never the great preoccupation of the Christian heart. And some of those who were indeed persecuted in their bodies, in the midst of the lions and the flames sang hymns to God and went smilingly to their fate, because they heeded what our Savior said: "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all other things will be added unto it."

What does that mean? It means that no matter what is done to the body, that most precious good, that which is above all to be in our sights as the ultimate good, and therefore to be considered before any physical, material evil, is our relationship with God and our salvation through His Son. Put that first!

But I'll tell you, if that's our standard--not the material oppression; not the chains; not the dungeons; not the whips and the brutality of physical oppression--if the standard is the persecution of the spirit and the heart, and the deprivation of that life which is the light that shines in the darkness, then I'd ask you a question: if that's our standard, where do we find the most persecuted Christians in the world?

Do we find them in China--where, in spite of all, the flame burns brightly of the spirit, and continues to shine out new light and make a place for God's truth? Do we find them in the Sudan? I don't think so. Because all those rulers who think they can crush out the flame of truth with all their physical brutality have been proven--down through these two thousand years--that they are WRONG. The truth marches on!

But I'll tell you something. Do you want to ask yourself where the worst oppression of Christians in the world may be? I find them in the classrooms of our government schools, where the assault is not upon the body, but the soul!

I find it in the lies that are being told to our young people, as time and again, in place after place, they are trying to pretend that sexual perversion and promiscuity are the normal order of the day!

I find it on the screens of our movie houses and on our television shows, where the assault is not upon the body, but upon the truth that shapes the soul. THAT'S where I find persecution.

I find it in the homes and hearts of this country: parents whose rights and obligations with respect to their children's care and upbringing and schooling are being violated every single day, by the erection of a structure of government authority that, though it stands on the separation of church and state, in fact seems to seek to drive moral judgment and faith out of our lives. I find THAT to be persecution!

And I find it in the sterile clinics, where abortion assassins carry out daily their murders of the innocent unborn, and with that stroke take not only the physical life of a babe, but the moral heart and soul of our country. THAT I find to be persecution.

Our Lord and Savior warned us that we should be careful of seeing the mote in another's eye, and not the beam in our own. But I'll tell you, until we have restored, once again, the wholesome truths on which this nation is based--until we have reached a time, once again, when we are free to see those truths taught to our children in the schools, supported in the authority of our parents over those schools, and in the home, and finally resurrected to be the banner of truth: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created"--not born, but created--"equal." And therefore, life, from the moment of conception until natural birth, is to be respected as God's possession, not our choice.

Until we have restored in this nation those standards, we will not have ended the worst persecution of all!

And what I say there, I say advisedly. Because I've been thinking a lot lately about folks--like you and me--who have chosen to stand up in American life today and to try to translate our Christian faith, and its moral consequences, into our lives as citizens.

I noted--I don't know whether it's in the program or just on the summary they gave--that somebody had summarized my talk today as "Principles, not Politics." And see, that's not really true. I don't believe in this distinction. The word "principle" comes from "princeps," which was a Latin word for "first," the first things. And I think that you and I, and the Christian Coalition from its inception, does not represent the belief that you can somehow have politics without principles, divorce politics from principles. We acknowledge that, in this land as in our hearts, the first principle of all human action, of all human judgment, of all human hope, is Almighty God. And we bring that principle back into the political life of this country.

And we also acknowledge that in doing so . . . I know that there are people who think that politics is all about winning office and getting power. And I don't put it past some of them to try to learn the language that will please all of you, to see if they can make you a stepping-stone to that objective. And they'll come before you with all kinds of good things.

I would recommend that you don't listen to a word they say while they're here. I mean that. I mean it--not a word they say when they come here matters a bit! Nothing they say when they stand HERE hoping for your votes matters at all! The only thing that matters is what they are willing to say when the cameras are on, and the audience is hostile, and no one wants to hear the truth! That's when I want them to stand up for it!

And that too, I believe, pretty much outlines the challenge for all of us. For you know, I am mindful of the fact that I stand here beneath the banner of the Christian Coalition. Who is Christ? Jesus asked Peter that question. What did Peter say? The Son of the living God. But when we say this, we stand, we gather here, under a banner which bears the name of Christ. We can be mindful of the hope He gave us, that wherever two or three are gathered in His name, there also He stands.

But I think that as we face all of the vicissitudes, temptations and seductions of this world--as we face those who are prey to political calculations and ambition--we need also to remember something else. We need to remember the second commandment of our Father God: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain."

No, no! Don't applaud that line; think about it. We stand beneath a banner that bears upon it the name of our Lord and Savior, Whom we profess to be the Son of God, and God Himself, truly made man for our sins. We take His name, and by taking His name we are not just mouthing words, we are professing that we shall, as He did, translate that Word into the flesh and blood of our actions, and our commitments, and our standards, and our positions, and our policies--THAT'S what we're saying.

And if, instead, we allow that name, and whatever power can be amassed under this banner, to be abused by those who mean to use God for THEIR purposes, not be used for His, then that second commandment had better be in our minds: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain." Not in your private life; not in the public life of this country.

If we mean, as a people, to stand forth in the public life of this nation professing to act from motives that are the consequence of our relationship with God, of His love in our hearts, of our follower-ship of Jesus Christ, then we had better make sure that at the top of the agenda is not the flat tax and the budget issues, and the economic life, and the foreign policy, or any other issue dictated by the ambition of politicians seeking power. We had better make sure that at the top of that agenda stand the policies of God Almighty--saying that we must respect His will for babes in the womb, for families in the home, for children in the schools. And we should not let them off the hook, for any reason whatsoever, as we pursue the agenda that will make this nation once again morally sound, and morally whole.

And then, I believe, that we shall surely deserve what in our hearts I am sure we seek above all: to be greeted--as I am sure Mother Theresa was this week--by a moment of death that does not deserve mourning, but rather great joy, because the calling was not a calling from life, but a calling to greater life, and truer life, and greater joy, as He says to her what He gives to all His servants, however late they come to the vineyard: "Well done, my good and faithful servant. Welcome to this, your home."

God bless you.