 Senator Jim DeMint Values Freedom and Faith Senator Jim DeMint (Republican from South Carolina) is a soft-spoken man who seems at first glance too quiet to be a member of the United States Senate. However, one look at his record since taking office indicates he is working diligently to preserve our freedom and the society intended by our founding fathers. He is not trying to force Christianity and its morality on people, rather, he is calling on Americans to understand what made us a great country: the principles that emerged from a value system informed by our Biblical faith. Senator DeMint's book Saving Freedom came out this summer and I had an opportunity to talk with him about it face to face recently. There's a statement on the back of your book that says you're becoming one of the most influential and effective conservative leaders in Congress. To what do you attribute that?
Senator DeMint: I'm one of the few that is actually pushing against the status quo. So a lot of that effectiveness is maybe trying to stop the bad things that are going through. Probably more comes from just speaking out. I haven't been afraid to speak out against Republicans if I don't think they're doing the right thing. I've been taking the message to the American people on talk radio, on blogs and on Fox.
The book is a continuation of taking the message to the American people. My belief is that the only way to change Congress and to stop the rampage at the Federal level is to stand up and say "Enough is enough."
Saving Freedom is to help people see the difference between free society and what a socialist society looks like so they can make a decision.
In the introduction to the book, you go all the way back to the 1920s and identify that period as the beginning of the slide into socialism. Why do you think more people aren't talking about that, or aware of the ramifications of the changes we're seeing?
Senator DeMint: It happened so incrementally that I don't think people have noticed. We certainly don't teach the difference between a free market system and a free civil society and socialism in our schools. They're government schools, in effect, and are universities are heavily government funded so not a lot of truth ekes out.
But part of Saving Freedom is to help people see those incremental steps and see where we've come from, and remind people that it was our Judeo-Christian value system, particularly the Protestant religion, that founded America in the first place. The values and principles that spring from religious conviction are those that make our economic system work and our political system work. But a lot of Christians in America have been convinced that there has to be a separation of God and America and values and our culture, and that is a bogus idea. I hope Saving Freedom will embolden Christians and confirm that what we believe about the Bible, about our faith, is what makes America work.
 Not that I want the government to push religion, but I don't want the government pushing religion out of the country, because with it goes our values and our principles that make everything else work.
When you discuss it in that vein, it's more of a reinforcement of our government and its principles than Christianity trying to take over the country, which is how a lot of people see it, I think.
Senator DeMint: Not at all. I want to make that clear because I think a lot of movements in the past; the Moral Majority, etc., sent a message, or at least inferred, that we want the government to force our religion and our morality on people. But we're dealing with a very different problem today, and it's a secular government that wants to make our society secular. The values and principles that have worked for years are being disconnected from our economic system and our laws and court rulings.
But what we see happening around the world is that when you establish democracies without the underlying Judeo-Christian value system, they generally don't work. We can let people vote in Iraq all we want, but without the institutions of freedom, many of those which are based on Judeo-Christian values (churches and schools and other things), it doesn't work.
What I'm calling on Americans to do is to understand once again what made us great a country, what made us good and compassionate and prosperous. These were things that emerged from a value system that was informed by our Biblical faith. If we give that up, which we have in many ways, it invites the government to take over in many areas of our lives. When they do, freedom dissolves.
You had a very interesting reason for getting into politics initially. You were the president of the "freshman class" of congressmen, and began making an impact right away. Are there other "young" congressmen who are as passionate as yourself about this cause?
Senator DeMint: There are not as many as we would hope because the system punishes you and beats you down, and I talk about that in the book so people will understand why, and what the motivation is to vote for more government and more spending. It's because generally, you're rewarded when you do. There's a group out there that's happy if you spend more money, and if you cut something, there's always a group out there that's mad about it. So the reinforcement you get tends to beat you down after a while.
We've got some bright new congressmen and new senators, but one of the things we need to realize is that Congress is not going to begin the real change in America. We're going to continue to slide toward socialism if Americans don't stand up and demand more restraint from their government, because politics is downstream from our culture. That's the reason I feel like Saving Freedom is so important, as is Christian radio, Christian publications, talk radio, blogs, everything that can take a message to the American people and get them engaged. We want them calling and emailing congressmen and senators, going to Tea Parties, and protesting in front of a congressman's office if they have to and say, "Don't vote for government health care," for instance.
 Christians need to see a connection between government health care and their faith because there's a reason that Europe is post-Christian, and that's because first they're socialist. When the government grows, it becomes in effect our master, and we can't have two masters as people of faith. I hope Saving Freedom will rattle people's cages and get them engaged and confirm what I believe a lot of Christians know: that what they believe is right and it works and it's what made America great. We shouldn't be cowed thinking we have to go hide in the shadows while the secularists run our country. We don't have to accept that.
God tells us we're salt and light, and the same is true in politics as it is in the church. We can have a few people who are talking about the truth and where we actually came from as a country, and we can make a difference. We don't have to be a majority.
When did you begin writing the book?
Senator DeMint: I've been working on it for several years. The growth of dependency on government has always concerned me, so I had a lot of notes and books stacked everywhere from doing research. But it was about this time last year when I saw how the election was going to turn out, and as I say in the book, a lot of Republicans had betrayed the trust of the American people and really not stuck with their principles. A lot of Democrats had moved to the left, and the country was going toward socialism.
I sat down and began to work with Baker & Howard Publishing and Fidelis Books and spent seven days a week, probably 12 hours a day, during the last three months of the year, at home. We'd gotten out of session early because of the election, so I wrote all the way through the end of December.
For me it's a cry for help, because I realize my power as a senator is based on how many people across America are going to stand with me. If the other senators can ignore me, they will. But they can't ignore me if they're getting hundreds of thousands of emails, phone calls and letters, and people are demonstrating outside their offices. They can't ignore me. And that's what I'm trying to do with saving Freedom.
We've had two Tea Parties in our part of Central California, and have watched environmental interest groups block water from coming to the fields of our farmers, who produce the majority of food grown in the United States. There's a lot of anger in our area against the government and they're ready to stand up. As you're traveling and connecting with people, are you seeing that kind of response also?
Senator DeMint: I think people are starting to connect the dots. Government is trying to say that we can limit water and still have it, that we can limit our energy and still have it, that we can have secular schools and still have a moral people. I've got a whole page in the book about how we've been promised all these things that are counterintuitive, and they want us to think we can have it all. In California, the people vote against more taxes but the government keeps on spending. They want us to think we can have it both ways, and we can't.
 I'm glad Americans are starting to connect the dots. It's not about liberal and conservatives, Republicans or Democrats. It's about rebuilding America with the values that made us great, and I'm glad to see people in California starting to connect those dots. We're being told that we can have it all without paying a price, and we can't.
Do you have aspirations beyond the Senate? We have a presidential election in a few years.
Senator DeMint: I tell everyone that anyone who wants to be president doesn't know how much trouble we're in as a country. It would be very difficult for leaders to tell people the truth, that we've dug ourselves a deep hole and it's going to be hard to get out. But we need some honest leaders. We keep having presidents running on the idea that they're going to fix everything , when in fact the truth is that the more they try to fix, the deeper they dig the hole.
I have no plans to run for President, but I am looking around the country for people who will stand for principles that make our country work. I'm hoping that if we pick our next candidate based on principles that we can elect someone who can do the tough job of running our country. It's not something that I aspire to right now. Of course, I didn't aspire to be a senator either.
Your wife still wants you to come home and cut the grass.
Senator DeMint: She does, and she doesn't like this lifestyle at all. I don't like it either. Our kids are grown and married and I'm still traveling for the week to Washington, and it's not what we planned for our old age.
Can you talk about your faith?
Senator DeMint: I'd be glad to. I talk about it in the book. I draw parallels between the Protestant Reformation and what it did to explode freedom in the world, and what happened in my life. It did the same thing to me personally, first, to have the spiritual freedom of being released from guilt and sin, and then to lean on the promises of God. In Christ we really are a new creation, and I sensed that. Not immediately. I was confused for a while until someone took me to a good discipleship program and I learned how to use the Bible for myself.
It means so much to me in my personal life, my marriage, raising children, and running my business. It really is my motivation for being involved in politics because my life verse is Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." I really believe that freedom is all connected. You don't have spiritual freedom separate of economic and political freedom. It's really all joined in a lot of ways. And everywhere you see the spirit of Christ prevail, you see people demanding political and economic freedom. You see it in other parts of the world, in China, for example.
When it begins to fade, then people's willingness to accept another master grows, and you see that beginning to happen in our country. I'm careful to point out in the book that I'm not perfect. It's not like I was bad and now I'm good, because Jesus tends to attract a pretty rough crowd, and I'm one of them.
I really think we almost need a re-awakening right like we had right before the American Revolution, where people of faith recognized that the only way we were going to turn this around was returning to Him. We see in the book of Chronicles that if we turn to Him as a nation, He'll restore our nation. We really need to do that, and it's not just Sunday School stuff. It's Monday morning in Congress that we need to think about doing this.
Instead, we're trying to push religious conviction, the Bible and faith out of public life. That's not what the Constitution is about. It's time we have to stand up and fight for it. I challenge pastors a lot. They have to come out from behind the safety of those church walls and go out in their community and say when things are right and wrong. They can't accept this idea that they can't endorse candidates and speak out against things that are going on in Washington. The leaders of our Revolution for the large part were pastors who took their robes off, hung them up, and lead the congregation out to fight the British. It's an unfortunate thing to have to do, but we need people of faith in the fight. ©2009 ChristianCinema.com All photos from Senator DeMint's website |
