Thinking About Our Future

FALWELL CONFIDENTIAL
Insider weekly newsletter to The Moral Majority Coalition and The Liberty Alliance http://www.falwell.com/
From: Jonathan Falwell
Date: November 7, 2008

Thinking About Our Future

Conservative Christians everywhere are wondering what the election of Barack Obama as our 44th President means to them. I’ll try to answer that complex question.

First, Barack Obama is our new leader and we, as Christians, must pledge ourselves to pray for him daily. We should not see our prayer commitment to him and his team any differently than we did with the presidency of Ronald Reagan or any other President.

Why must we do this? Simply: God promises to honor us in our prayers.

Look at Psalm 9:10: “And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You” (NKJV).

I certainly understand that conservative Christians are concerned that President-elect Obama’s worldview counters our own on some key issues, specifically in terms of our pro-life, pro-traditional family principles. I also understand that we seem to be witnessing the abandonment of the “Ask not what your country can do for you” principles of JFK.

However, I believe there is a real need for our nation to come together, as much as possible, because the nation-divided reality we have been witnessing the last several years is a drain on us as a people.

I’m not saying it’s time to give up and let conservatism die—not in the least. In fact, I believe the election of Barack Obama as our President should serve as a wakeup call to conservatives everywhere, especially people of faith who are indeed thinking about our future.

I continue to believe that the key to America’s future and success is conservative ideals and I am fervently praying that a new generation of conservative leaders (even a new Ronald Reagan) will arise in the coming months. There are already some bold young conservative leaders on the horizon who I have committed to pray for.

And so, while we must fervently beseech God to bless and lead our new President, as the Bible compels us to do, we must be simultaneously involved in bringing about a 1980-like conservatism revolution. (And, yes, Christians should be, and may legally be, involved in the political process.)

I appreciate my friend Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law, who recalled this week something my father said prior to the 1980 elections, in which Ronald Reagan was elected, along with a rash of conservative lawmakers: “The people haven’t gone bad. Leadership has.”

I think that is equally true today. Conservative people were abandoned by many of their so-called leaders in the last few years.

You see, conservatism is not popular in the mainstream (there’s a news flash) and I fear that many politicians have shrunk away from core conservative values simply because of political expediency. They were, sadly, afraid of a fight. Those aren’t the kinds of conservatives we need … and many of them are now gone.

So there is work to do now.

I believe most Americans are conservative or moderately conservative. (Look at the votes to protect traditional marriage in Arizona, California and Florida this week, as examples of this.) Again, we must begin to cultivate true conservative leaders who are intelligent, principled, courageous, passionate and willing to stand against any mainstream assault to promote and defend our ideals.

Multiple millions of Americans are starving for those types of leaders.