Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson delivered a rousing speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday in which he invoked faith to uplift America.
The famous neurosurgeon-turned-politician said, in part:
I have no doubt that God lowered a shield of protection over President Trump. And I join millions of Americans in thanksgiving for President Trump’s safety. I encourage you to join me praying each day for his continued protection. Our hearts go out to the victims in the audience. Let’s pray for them and their families.
These events have brought unusual clarity to the times we are living in. We have all harbored the nagging feeling that everything we love is slipping away. All you have to do is turn on the television. The free press, a pillar of any free society, has abused the public trust and resorted to lies, deception and disinformation. They divide us along lines of race, class, and gender, rather than uniting us around our shared bond as Americans. Our government has been no better — shredding our Constitution and upending the rule of law. We have a wide open border, a broken education system, and chaos breaking out around the world. On top of it all, we have a president who — well, if you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.…
I feel blessed that I have been able to live the American dream. But my story is moving further out of reach in America today. The lessons my mother taught me — like hard work; and the value of well-rounded, patriotic education; and faith in God above all else, are being forced out of the public square. We are all here today because we know we can bring these things back. [Applause]
By God’s grace, we live in a country where the people rule. We have the power to choose the kind of nation we want to be, and the kind of men and women who will lead us. And today, the choice could not be more clear.
The most repeated phrase in the Bible is this: “Do not be afraid,” or “Fear not.” It appears 365 times in Scripture, a reminder to live each day with faith, hope, and joy, as joyful warriors for Christ. [Applause]
And when God is with us, nobody can stand against us. With this assurance from the Almighty, even the face of evil itself cannot shake our resolve. We will keep fighting. We will keep praying. And by the grace of God, we will save our country and reelect President Trump together with Vice President Vance this November.
And I want you to remember this. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville came to america to study our nation because the europeans were fascinated — they wanted to know how a nation barely 50 years old could already compete with them on virtually every level. So he looked at our government. he was duly impressed by our checks and balances and separation of powers. And then he looked at our business environment. He was duly impressed by how we encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. And he looked at our educational system and he was blown away by the fact that he could find a mountain man in the middle of the woods who could read, who could tell him about the Declaration of Independence. But the thing that impressed him the most was when he went to our churches and he heard those inspirational sermons from the pulpits that inspired a ragtag bunch of militiamen to defeat the most powerful army in the world, and gave the American people a moral basis.
And he concluded his two-volume set, Democracy in America, with these words — he said: “America is great because America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”* It is our job to make America good, and let’s do this by reelecting President Trump so we can make America great.
*Tocqueville did not actually write that, though the phrase is often attributed to him. And in admiring faith in America, Tocqueville also noted that faith was stronger than in Europe because it was separate from the state.
Nonetheless, in identifying the spiritual crisis of the age — and the sense that things are slipping away — Carson also identified the remedy, echoing a powerful message of faith that has resonated throughout this extraordinary convention.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
