Keyes calls on Americans to return to God
RenewAmerica staff
In a Thanksgiving message issued through Declaration Alliance, former Reagan UN ambassador Alan Keyes said America's problems are the result of four decades of moral decline.
"The stinging truth [is]: America's many problems stem above all from 40 years of faithlessness, of failure to live fully, openly, and unashamedly in righteousness as we are called [by God] to do."
Keyes added,
"For God to bless America, as our troubled society so desperately needs Him to do, outspoken leadership from the humblest to the loftiest levels must call our nation to action. And there is no better high ground on which to make our stand than to seek an end to the reigning tyranny in Washington that mocks God and continually subverts our troubled society. To put a halt to these usurpations requires us to pray, and to act with courage — and to insist that our public officials, from our City Councils to the Oval Office, and our Congress, halt the government's encroachments upon our free exercise of our faith."
The former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council and Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations continued:
"As we enjoy this day of Thanksgiving with family and friends, let us pray for strength and fortitude to openly defend God's authority over the sovereignty of the American people — a power of self-governance and self-mastery entrusted us in our human equality by God the Father. Let us pray to no longer suffer from a lack of clarity and forthrightness about how America must address crucial issues of justice, moral law, national security and the requirements of constitutional order.
"For America's sake, let us today commit to step beyond the weak conventions of professing only 'private' faith and summon the courage each of us to be a strong advocate of national, public obedience to the authority of our Creator God and His moral law."
Below is the full text of Keyes' remarks.
Thanksgiving Message 2010
Let us give thanks to Almighty God on this day of Thanksgiving for our manifold blessings.
And as we do so, let us emulate our nation's two greatest presidents, who bequeathed us this day of national Thanksgiving, in also asking with all humility our Father God's continued blessings and protections for our nation, and His forgiveness for our countless transgressions of His will.
For we know the stinging truth: America's many problems stem above all from 40 years of faithlessness, of failure to live fully, openly and unashamedly in righteousness as we are called to do.
We are assured in our nation's very Founding creed, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and all our Founding documents, laws and institutions of the natural law philosophy of ordered liberty that is America. This philosophy stands unique in human history as the God-honoring champion of human equality, the defender of unalienable rights of life, liberty and property of every human person.
A paramount obligation of the state, because of the duty owed to the Supreme Judge of the Universe, is our respect for the God-given right to the free establishment and free exercise of decent, God-fearing religion. America's Founding Judeo-Christian religious faith and convictions form the moral and intellectual foundation of the American regime.
Yet with what vigor and boldness have we publicly lived out the very blessings of liberty entrusted to us by our great American experiment in responsible self-government under God?
We, as God's people, still allow our politicians, courts and bureaucrats to keep taking step after step to erode our God-ordained freedom, outlaw public expression or evidence of our faith, and to deny the spiritual foundations of our great nation! The banning of God from our national common life — from our courthouses, our public schools, our military — proceeds apace. Legal protections, and religious and moral equivalence are accorded to murderous cults and depraved practices that are the antithesis of the true sanctity owed to God.
For God to bless America, as our troubled society so desperately needs Him to do, outspoken leadership from the humblest to the loftiest levels must call our nation to action. And there is no better high ground on which to make our stand than to seek an end to the reigning tyranny in Washington that mocks God and continually subverts our troubled society. To put a halt to these usurpations requires us to pray, and to act with courage — and to insist that our public officials, from our City Councils to the Oval Office, and our Congress, halt the government's encroachments upon our free exercise of our Judeo-Christian faith.
As we enjoy this day of Thanksgiving with family and friends, let us pray for strength and fortitude to openly defend God's authority over the sovereignty of the American people — a power of self-governance and self-mastery entrusted us in our human equality by God the Father. Let us pray to no longer suffer from a lack of clarity and forthrightness about how America must address crucial issues of justice, moral law, national security and the requirements of constitutional order.
For America's sake, let us today commit to step beyond the weak conventions of professing only "private" faith and summon the courage each of us to be a strong advocate of national, public obedience to the authority of our Creator God and His moral law.
Let us remember that far too many of our fellow countrymen now accept the false doctrine of absolute "separation of church and state," as if embarrassed to bear witness to the faith of our fathers.
History teaches us this truth: nations follow the moral example of their leadership. So let us re-read the wise and humble words of our great leaders, Presidents Washington and Lincoln, who knew that "those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
And then let us resolve to act decisively in our own communities, to live our faith. For only by honoring God and his Supreme Authority in the affairs of men may we return America's constitutional order to its necessary equilibrium of sovereignty of a Godly people, limited power among our branches of government, sound ethics to public service — and at least in this faithfulness, become again a nation and a people remotely worthy of receiving the Gift of God's unfathomable Grace.
November 25, 2010
In a Thanksgiving message issued through Declaration Alliance, former Reagan UN ambassador Alan Keyes said America's problems are the result of four decades of moral decline."The stinging truth [is]: America's many problems stem above all from 40 years of faithlessness, of failure to live fully, openly, and unashamedly in righteousness as we are called [by God] to do."
Keyes added,
"For God to bless America, as our troubled society so desperately needs Him to do, outspoken leadership from the humblest to the loftiest levels must call our nation to action. And there is no better high ground on which to make our stand than to seek an end to the reigning tyranny in Washington that mocks God and continually subverts our troubled society. To put a halt to these usurpations requires us to pray, and to act with courage — and to insist that our public officials, from our City Councils to the Oval Office, and our Congress, halt the government's encroachments upon our free exercise of our faith."
The former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council and Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations continued:
"As we enjoy this day of Thanksgiving with family and friends, let us pray for strength and fortitude to openly defend God's authority over the sovereignty of the American people — a power of self-governance and self-mastery entrusted us in our human equality by God the Father. Let us pray to no longer suffer from a lack of clarity and forthrightness about how America must address crucial issues of justice, moral law, national security and the requirements of constitutional order.
"For America's sake, let us today commit to step beyond the weak conventions of professing only 'private' faith and summon the courage each of us to be a strong advocate of national, public obedience to the authority of our Creator God and His moral law."
Below is the full text of Keyes' remarks.
Thanksgiving Message 2010
Let us give thanks to Almighty God on this day of Thanksgiving for our manifold blessings.
And as we do so, let us emulate our nation's two greatest presidents, who bequeathed us this day of national Thanksgiving, in also asking with all humility our Father God's continued blessings and protections for our nation, and His forgiveness for our countless transgressions of His will.
For we know the stinging truth: America's many problems stem above all from 40 years of faithlessness, of failure to live fully, openly and unashamedly in righteousness as we are called to do.
We are assured in our nation's very Founding creed, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and all our Founding documents, laws and institutions of the natural law philosophy of ordered liberty that is America. This philosophy stands unique in human history as the God-honoring champion of human equality, the defender of unalienable rights of life, liberty and property of every human person.
A paramount obligation of the state, because of the duty owed to the Supreme Judge of the Universe, is our respect for the God-given right to the free establishment and free exercise of decent, God-fearing religion. America's Founding Judeo-Christian religious faith and convictions form the moral and intellectual foundation of the American regime.
Yet with what vigor and boldness have we publicly lived out the very blessings of liberty entrusted to us by our great American experiment in responsible self-government under God?
We, as God's people, still allow our politicians, courts and bureaucrats to keep taking step after step to erode our God-ordained freedom, outlaw public expression or evidence of our faith, and to deny the spiritual foundations of our great nation! The banning of God from our national common life — from our courthouses, our public schools, our military — proceeds apace. Legal protections, and religious and moral equivalence are accorded to murderous cults and depraved practices that are the antithesis of the true sanctity owed to God.
For God to bless America, as our troubled society so desperately needs Him to do, outspoken leadership from the humblest to the loftiest levels must call our nation to action. And there is no better high ground on which to make our stand than to seek an end to the reigning tyranny in Washington that mocks God and continually subverts our troubled society. To put a halt to these usurpations requires us to pray, and to act with courage — and to insist that our public officials, from our City Councils to the Oval Office, and our Congress, halt the government's encroachments upon our free exercise of our Judeo-Christian faith.
As we enjoy this day of Thanksgiving with family and friends, let us pray for strength and fortitude to openly defend God's authority over the sovereignty of the American people — a power of self-governance and self-mastery entrusted us in our human equality by God the Father. Let us pray to no longer suffer from a lack of clarity and forthrightness about how America must address crucial issues of justice, moral law, national security and the requirements of constitutional order.
For America's sake, let us today commit to step beyond the weak conventions of professing only "private" faith and summon the courage each of us to be a strong advocate of national, public obedience to the authority of our Creator God and His moral law.
Let us remember that far too many of our fellow countrymen now accept the false doctrine of absolute "separation of church and state," as if embarrassed to bear witness to the faith of our fathers.
History teaches us this truth: nations follow the moral example of their leadership. So let us re-read the wise and humble words of our great leaders, Presidents Washington and Lincoln, who knew that "those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
And then let us resolve to act decisively in our own communities, to live our faith. For only by honoring God and his Supreme Authority in the affairs of men may we return America's constitutional order to its necessary equilibrium of sovereignty of a Godly people, limited power among our branches of government, sound ethics to public service — and at least in this faithfulness, become again a nation and a people remotely worthy of receiving the Gift of God's unfathomable Grace.
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Keep Faith,
Ambassador Alan Keyes