On Saturday Mitt Romney delivered a speech to the 6000 Liberty College graduates.
It was an important speech not only because it seems to have closed the gap between Romney and evangelical Christians but also because it spelled out major themes in Mitt Romneys understanding of America.
Romney: You know who you are. And you know whom you will serve. Not all colleges instill that kind of confidence . . . .
This is a truism. Most American universities seek to graduate men and women who are as committed to secularism as nearly all the members of faculty are. In contrast at traditional Christian and Jewish schools the aim is as Romney said to produce students who know whom they will serve.
What Romney is asking is this: If one is not morally accountable to God to whom or what is one morally accountable? Most universities will respond: to ones conscience. But those who adhere to Judeo-Christian values do not trust the conscience alone. What Nazi or Communist mass murderer was not at peace with his conscience? The conscience is as easily manipulated as the heart (the heart being the other guide to behavior among most college graduates).
Romney: Moral certainty clear standards and a commitment to spiritual ideals will set you apart in a world that searches for meaning.
The death of God has not only led to moral uncertainty; the secular left actually boasts of its moral uncertainty. Unlike the religious who have a black and white view of moral issues (so the left tells us) those on the left struggle with moral complexity. But this is self-delusion. The left is as morally certain about its positions as the most fundamentalist Christian. Where is the lefts moral uncertainty about same-sex marriage? About abolishing capital punishment? About race-based affirmative action? About higher taxes? Indeed about anything the left believes in?
Romney: That said your values will not always be the object of public admiration. In fact the more you live by your beliefs the more you will endure the censure of the world.
Is that ever true. Those of us who adhere to Judeo-Christian values and live a religious life are mocked as fools when not dismissed as dangerous. If you believe that nature was designed by a Creator you are regarded as an anti-science buffoon. If you get your values from the Bible you are considered a living anachronism.
Romney: Harvard historian David Landes devoted his lifelong study to understanding why some civilizations rise and why others falter. His conclusion: Culture makes all the difference. Not natural resources not geography but what people believe and value. . . . For those who graduate from high school get a full-time job and marry before they have their first child the probability that they will be poor is 2 percent. But if those things are absent 76 percent will be poor. Culture matters.
This is the key to understanding the underclass here and in Europe. But it is the antithesis of what is taught at American universities. They -- and the rest of the left -- teach that it is not values or culture that most determines human behavior. Violent crime is not caused by a murderers lack of moral values father self-discipline church life or marriage but by poverty and/or racism.
Romney: Central to Americas rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition . . . .
Exactly right. Every free country on earth was formed by Christianity or shaped by a Christian country that imposed it (India and Japan for example). And the freest of them all America has been the most Judeo-based Christian country in the world.
Romney: The American culture promotes personal responsibility the dignity of work the value of education the merit of service devotion to a purpose greater than self and at the foundation the pre-eminence of the family.
And each one of these values has been under siege by the left. The left undermines personal responsibility by excusing the irresponsibility of all but white Christian males; undermines the dignity of work with ever-increasing entitlements; shifts the merit of service from individuals and communal institutions to the state; and weakens the family by strengthening peoples reliance on the government and by removing all stigma to unwed motherhood.
Romney: From the beginning this nation trusted in God not man.
This is why one of the mottos of this country is In God We Trust. This is the heart of the cultural civil war in which America is now engaged. Do human rights come from the Creator or from men?
Romney: People of different faiths like yours and mine sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose when there are so many differences in creed and theology.
A very significant statement -- a major Mormon figure stating that mainstream Christians and Mormons have different faiths. But even more important is his truly American realization that all Americans of every faith (including Islam one might add) and even those who have no formal religion can meet in common purpose. And that purpose is living by and promulgating the American value system: Liberty In God We Trust and E Pluribus Unum.
Dennis Prager is a SRN radio show host contributing columnist for Townhall.com and author of his newest book Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.
On Saturday Mitt Romney delivered a speech to the 6000 Liberty College graduates.
It was an important speech not only because it seems to have closed the gap between Romney and evangelical Christians but also because it spelled out major themes in Mitt Romneys understanding of America.
Romney: You know who you are. And you know whom you will serve. Not all colleges instill that kind of confidence . . . .
This is a truism. Most American universities seek to graduate men and women who are as committed to secularism as nearly all the members of faculty are. In contrast at traditional Christian and Jewish schools the aim is as Romney said to produce students who know whom they will serve.
What Romney is asking is this: If one is not morally accountable to God to whom or what is one morally accountable? Most universities will respond: to ones conscience. But those who adhere to Judeo-Christian values do not trust the conscience alone. What Nazi or Communist mass murderer was not at peace with his conscience? The conscience is as easily manipulated as the heart (the heart being the other guide to behavior among most college graduates).
Romney: Moral certainty clear standards and a commitment to spiritual ideals will set you apart in a world that searches for meaning.
The death of God has not only led to moral uncertainty; the secular left actually boasts of its moral uncertainty. Unlike the religious who have a black and white view of moral issues (so the left tells us) those on the left struggle with moral complexity. But this is self-delusion. The left is as morally certain about its positions as the most fundamentalist Christian. Where is the lefts moral uncertainty about same-sex marriage? About abolishing capital punishment? About race-based affirmative action? About higher taxes? Indeed about anything the left believes in?
Romney: That said your values will not always be the object of public admiration. In fact the more you live by your beliefs the more you will endure the censure of the world.
Is that ever true. Those of us who adhere to Judeo-Christian values and live a religious life are mocked as fools when not dismissed as dangerous. If you believe that nature was designed by a Creator you are regarded as an anti-science buffoon. If you get your values from the Bible you are considered a living anachronism.
Romney: Harvard historian David Landes devoted his lifelong study to understanding why some civilizations rise and why others falter. His conclusion: Culture makes all the difference. Not natural resources not geography but what people believe and value. . . . For those who graduate from high school get a full-time job and marry before they have their first child the probability that they will be poor is 2 percent. But if those things are absent 76 percent will be poor. Culture matters.
This is the key to understanding the underclass here and in Europe. But it is the antithesis of what is taught at American universities. They -- and the rest of the left -- teach that it is not values or culture that most determines human behavior. Violent crime is not caused by a murderers lack of moral values father self-discipline church life or marriage but by poverty and/or racism.
Romney: Central to Americas rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition . . . .
Exactly right. Every free country on earth was formed by Christianity or shaped by a Christian country that imposed it (India and Japan for example). And the freest of them all America has been the most Judeo-based Christian country in the world.
Romney: The American culture promotes personal responsibility the dignity of work the value of education the merit of service devotion to a purpose greater than self and at the foundation the pre-eminence of the family.
And each one of these values has been under siege by the left. The left undermines personal responsibility by excusing the irresponsibility of all but white Christian males; undermines the dignity of work with ever-increasing entitlements; shifts the merit of service from individuals and communal institutions to the state; and weakens the family by strengthening peoples reliance on the government and by removing all stigma to unwed motherhood.
Romney: From the beginning this nation trusted in God not man.
This is why one of the mottos of this country is In God We Trust. This is the heart of the cultural civil war in which America is now engaged. Do human rights come from the Creator or from men?
Romney: People of different faiths like yours and mine sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose when there are so many differences in creed and theology.
A very significant statement -- a major Mormon figure stating that mainstream Christians and Mormons have different faiths. But even more important is his truly American realization that all Americans of every faith (including Islam one might add) and even those who have no formal religion can meet in common purpose. And that purpose is living by and promulgating the American value system: Liberty In God We Trust and E Pluribus Unum.
Dennis Prager is a SRN radio show host contributing columnist for Townhall.com and author of his newest book Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph.
