Speech to the New Jersey Right to
Life Conference
Alan Keyes
March 1998
Introduction by William Leib:
I had planned an introduction of Dr. Alan Keyes that read like a curriculum
vitae, a dry recitation of his accomplishment. You can read that dry
recitation in our convention journal. I sat last night with him at dinner and
heard him speak. And I would do him an injustice if I introduced him that way
because I think the way he needs to be introduced is to talk about his
passion. His passion for God, for family, for justice, for freedom.
It would be wonderful, given what happened 140 years ago, where Alan's descendants
in this country were treated as property. And a man named Lincoln stood up to
that treatment and was willing to bring a nation to war and was willing to
die so that treatment no longer took place and they were afforded the full
rights that God gave them as human beings. I think it would be wonderful if
this man was to deliver this nation, 140 years later, from the thinking that
goes on that now treats unborn children, almost-born children, as the
property of someone that you can do with as you please.
It is a great honor and a distinct pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Alan
Keyes.
Alan Keyes:
Being here today, I'm put in mind of the wonderful scene from the scriptures
where the three apostles accompany Christ to the summit with Elijah and Moses,
and they of course cannot fully comprehend what is going on--which of us
could? And their reaction is very simple, they are overcome with the awesome
joy of the occasion, and they say, "It sure is good to be here!"
And that is how I feel today--witnessing what has been this wonderful
outpouring of the Spirit and its fruits in New Jersey.
And I hope that you all understand as you come together here what tremendous
significance you have for the rest of us in this country. What you have done
in this state has been a true inspiration to us all. And God bless you for
it. You have more than stood in the breach, and you have understood and
demonstrated what I think it is all-important that everyone, top to bottom in
this county, understand: that there is no party label, there is no
allegiance, there is no personality, there is no one and nothing whatsoever
that will lead us to back away from our allegiance to God and to His truth.
And I know that there are some people that don't like that lesson at all; I
hear from them every now and again. They would dearly like it if we would
just understand the "realities of life." And the reality, they
think, is that whatever we might think, these great issues are here to be
used so that some people can gain power at the expense of others. And when
the time comes to make use of that power on behalf of right, we should look
the other way.
I listen to all kinds of arguments like this these days, and sadly, they did
begin, I think, with the arguments that were made in a case very well known
to you, where folks are desperate to convince people that one should look
over here, at the economy and the tax cuts and other things and ignore what
is over there, which is the betrayal and abandonment of moral decency.
It seems to me that some people gave a dress rehearsal of that argument here
in the state if New Jersey so they could apply it--as we are now seeing them
apply it--in other quarters. It was wrong in New Jersey just as it is wrong
in our nation now. Because I don't care whether we have warm houses and a
roof over our heads. If we abandon our decent heart, it's all going to
collapse in the end.
And there were some folks who came into your state in support of that sad
argument, who profess to be pro-life. I image, in their hearts, some of them
may still be. But at some point I think folks have to realize that out of the
fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit.
Why don't we ever read scripture and apply it? So, if I stand before you and
say, "I'm pro-life," and then when the crunch comes I say,
"But I have this political debt to pay, or the economy is great, or tax
cuts were wonderful, so let the babies cry in vain"--then I am no more
pro-life than those I have supported as they overturn and veto and override
the decent will of the people of New Jersey and the people of America. It's
time we begin to understand that the real measure of pro-life conviction is
not what you say, it's what you do when the chips are down. All I can say to
that is, "Thank God there was no doubt about the pro-life conviction of
the grass roots people of New Jersey."
And I sincerely hope that your heart will someday be the heart of all of our
leadership, and that they will learn, as American leaders have had to learn
in the past, how to follow their people. And that in doing so they will
finally be capable of leading this state and this nation back to decency. But
always remember, if and when that happens, that there are going to be some
people who try to claim that it was them. Leaders have a way of doing that,
have you noticed that? People get the job done and they come along and say,
"That was my work." Don't you let anybody convince you of that.
When the day comes--and it will come--when in this state and all over this nation
we can celebrate the triumphant restoration of America's decent principle
that all men are created equal and are endowed, not by their mothers' choice
but by God Almighty, with their dignity and their human rights--on the day
when we achieve that restoration, all of you wherever you are, whatever you
are doing, whoever claims the credit, remember one thing: it was because you
answered the call of Almighty God and did His will. It was nothing they did,
it was what you did! And thank God for it. Every day, thank God for it, for
He will thank you, I am sure.
Now it is true that for various reasons in this country now, our attention is
focused on this issue of what kind of moral conscience we have. I think that
without going into it in great detail--since I'm sure none of you know what
I'm talking about--I would have to say some things have happened in the last
several weeks that have actually led some people to doubt whether America
still has a decent heart, whether we have a conscience, and so forth. And I
want to say something right now that may prove a little controversial, and
some people would say is down right suicidal for
someone who is supposed to have the ambitions that are sometimes ascribed to
people who have done what I have done. I've got to tell you that one of the
things that is becoming increasingly clear is that we are right now suffering
from the callous consciences of our women. Did you hear me say that? We are
suffering from the callous consciences of our women.
I've destroyed my political prospects right there. But I want you to look at
this truth and look at it carefully, because in the surveys and in the polls
that have been taken, we stand back and marvel at the stubborn support that
some people seem determined to give to wickedness. One of the things coming
through loud and clear is that there seems to be a fairly strong preference
among women for persisting in the delusion that there is some separation to
be made between character and public life in America. I would like, just for a
few minutes, for you to ask yourself why this would be the case. Because, you
see, it's a kind of reversal of the traditional role of women in civilized
society.
In civilized societies, as a general rule, the women are the ones you don't
curse in front of; the women are the ones before whom, however brutal you
might be under ordinary circumstances, you try to be on your better behavior
when they are in the room. Women kind of decorate the human condition with
the ideas of decency and self-restraint that then came to be understood as
how we are to behave in polite company. And the great hope that I think has
been secretly lurking in the hearts of mankind is that someday, not only in
our homes and in our churches, but maybe all of our streets and indeed all of
our arenas everywhere in the world would be considered polite company. And
that by adopting this respect for the decency which emanates from the hearts
of women we would actually remove from the world the scourges of war and
human maltreatment.
So, why can it be suddenly in America that we are able to look upon
wickedness, shut our eyes to it, turn our backs on it, and all our polls are
telling us that the opinion of women is in the lead in this effort to turn
away from decent conduct? Over here--again, without going into it in great
detail, without naming names or anything--we have a great question mark now
put before the nation as to whether in high places there has been an abuse of
power which resulted in a deep abuse of the human person. I know there are
some people trying to tell us that this is not what is going on. They say it
is about whether we want to peer into the private bedrooms of thus and such. I don't know why it is that some people
equate the Oval Office with a private bedroom. I realize that given some of
the policies and decisions that have emanated from there in recent years, we
might assume that everyone that has occupied it is asleep. But, generally
speaking, we make a distinction between the office and the bedroom.
However, leave that little bit of common sense aside, that is not what this
is about at all. I just want you to contemplate, in the abstract, the
prototype episode. Someone comes to another human being in dire and desperate
straits; their world is collapsing around them; they need help. They appeal
for help to you or anyone else. You have it in your power to relieve their
distress with a word. And at that moment, when they are, as it were, in the
palm of your hand, when with a gesture you may set them on the course of relief
or you may crush out their hope, you say, "Of course I can help you;
what a terrible plight you are in. Just satisfy my . . ." (put after
that "my ambition," put after that "my greed," put after
that "my lust") " . . . and then I will help you."
What do we generally call this? Do we generally call this a roguish
peccadillo? I don't think so; I think that we generally call this oppression.
I believe that we generally call this wickedness. I believe we generally have
recognized this as the very paradigm of evil. When human beings who are
before us helpless and vulnerable, and in our power are by us abused and
maltreated so that from them we can extract what it is that we desire to
satisfy our ambitions and our lusts, we call this tyranny. We call this oppression.
We call this injustice. And we have fought it--when we are decent--with
everything that is in our hearts.
So contemplate that scene for a minute: I have you in my power, and instead
of respecting your humanity, I crush out that humanity for the sake of my
convenience, my whim, my purposes. If you think about that just for a second,
and then ask yourself why is it that the women of this country might be
tempted to have some sympathy for the perpetrator, I think that the answer
springs to mind all too readily.
For if here there is someone abusing power over another for the sake of their
ambition, their lust, their greed, their whatever, what is it exactly that
since Roe v. Wade we have been telling the women of this country that it is
their right to do? Is there in this life some person more vulnerable than the
person in the womb? Is there in this life some human being more dependent,
more helpless, more open to the absolute possession and power of another than
that growing life in the womb? And yet, since that awful day when the Supreme
Court lost its mind and heart and judgment and pronounced upon Roe v. Wade,
what have we have told the women of this country about the act which, for the
sake of our whim, and our convenience, and our fear, and our passion, and our
desire to be free of the consequences, snuffs out the life of a innocent and
helpless human being who happens to be wholly in our power?--"That is
not wickedness. That is not evil. That is your right."
How dare we wonder and marvel at how people can still be approving, how can
they still be supporting, how can they not see the evil that is in front of
them? I'll tell you why we should not wonder at it: because as long as we
stand by the principle that women have the right to kill their innocent,
unborn children in the womb, we have destroyed the principle that "might
does not make right" and we have embraced to our hearts, as the founding
principle of this country, the foundation stone of all evil, all wickedness,
all oppression.
I believe with all my heart that it is the Lord our God writing large before
us the consequences of the poison we have put in the very soul of America. We
see it now breaking out, erupting before us in all its deadly consequences.
And what has for all these many years been killing the hearts of our women
now has risen to the very head of our nation and is killing our very soul.
So, how can we be surprised by all the arguments being made today?
"Well, the economy is doing well, great job, do whatever you please,
oppress them whenever you like." But what is that argument? It is a way
of saying that so long as our convenience is met, so long as our material
needs are taken care of, we don't need to worry about right and wrong, and we
have the right to do whatever we please. Is this not the same argument that
we have presented to our women and our young women? "You want a career.
You can't have a baby getting in the way. You're not ready for this. You
can't afford to have to reorganize your life to meet the obligations of parenthood.
Therefore you have the right to throw that life aside. So long as you are
taken care of, so long as you are not inconvenienced, so long as your economy
does well, so long as there is a roof over your head, so long as your
ambitions and hopes are not disturbed, you have the right to disregard moral
principles."
But it is interesting that what we have told women they can do to their
children now restores the evil principle which in the past encouraged men to
do whatever they pleased to women.
Is the irony of this lost on someone? And it has always been that way. I have
listened to so many eloquent pro-life speakers who warned of this
consequence: that the evil which we do to the innocent unborn will turn
around and become the evil that will be done, that is done, to us.
And now I watch as those who claimed, over the years, to be fighting for the
dignity and liberation and the right treatment of women in the workplace and
elsewhere stand silently by while fresh example upon fresh example heap up on
the doorstep of the highest places of the land. And they silently pretend
that they should look away because, "Well, this person has been so good
for women." I actually think that they should have been given pause
before now, but many of them being on the wrong side of the abortion issue,
it never occurred to them that it is impossible to say that somebody is good
for women if they are not good for the children they bear in their womb.
You'll notice that whenever I'm asked to come into New Jersey by the folks in
the Right to Life movement, you can be sure that I will be here. I will not
even try to lie to you and tell you that I was asked to come into this state
by your illustrious governor. But I can tell you that unlike some of my
colleagues, including some for whom I had enormous amount of respect, if I
had been asked, I most certainly would not have come. And why is that? Well,
for this very reason. I don't see how anybody who came into this state to
campaign for Christy Todd Whitman is ever again going to be able to stand
before this nation and claim that there is some important and compelling
reason why we should adopt legislation and human life amendments that are
pro-life, and oppose those who are pro-death.
I tried to explain this to a friend of mine, Senator Santorum, because I
thought that by coming into this state for Christy Whitman he utterly
undercut himself as a Senator of the United States. I said, "Imagine
that you are sitting down with one of your colleagues who is voting to
sustain the President's veto, and you make the eloquent case, that I know
that you are so very capable of making, on behalf of this being a
so-necessary ban on live, partial-birth abortion. And he will look at you and
say, 'I take the Whitman position on this, and you, yourself, said that she
was a great gift to America. I am, therefore, a great gift to America. And
when I go out there on that floor and vote against you on this one, I'm sure
you'll understand.'"
There are times in life when we have to decide. We have take a stand for the
innocent life in the womb. We must take a stand that says, "No, taxes
are not more important than this. The economy is not more important than
this. What you did on this bill and that bill and the other bill cannot be
more important than this."
And do you know why? Because in the end all that we spend this tax money
on--the efforts to deal with poverty, the efforts to deal with crime, the
efforts to improve life in our schools, and so forth . . . Look at every
single problem on which we expend all these many billions and hundreds of
billions of dollars--including, at the end of the day, what we don't always
want to recognize, all those billions we spend in order to arm ourselves to
the teeth against the impulses of violence and human oppression in the
world--and I'll tell you where all those needs come from: they all come from
the willingness to embrace the same principle that does violence to innocent
life in the womb. And as long as we enshrine that principle, we will spend
all the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars and we will
cure nothing; we will solve nothing; we will get nowhere.
I believe that this was the real meaning of Christ's words. Christ was a real
practical guy. Some people like to pretend otherwise, but no. He understood
the real foundation of any kind of success in life. Now this is sort of what
you would expect. I mean, who better to explain to you how to use the
wonderful machine except the guy who created it. If you really want to find
out how to make the thing work, go to the guy who put it together. He'll tell
you.
"In the beginning was the Word." Christ was there in the beginning,
present at the creation. And what does He actually tell us about how to use
this great and wonderful machine? He says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of
God." What does that mean? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all those other things will be added unto you."
What does He mean? What He means, very simply and in plain language, is:
"Get the moral stuff straight. Get yourself right with the Creator and
everything else will be taken care of."
It is really as simple as those moments when you are trying to get the
computer to work, and you just can't understand what's going on, and then
your six-year-old walks into the room and says, "Dad, why don't you plug
it in?" It's just as simple as that.
And yet what really appalls me is that with the pseudo-sophistication that is
so characteristic of our time, we have all these people telling us that they
are going to do such a wonderful job of tinkering with our money, and
tinkering with our schools, and tinkering with our tax structures and all
this sort of junk. And we are supposed to excuse it if they get the most
important things wrong. If they cannot understand that first and foremost you
must respect the basic rule--that God has invested every human being with an
inviolable dignity, and we have no right, arbitrarily, to take life, to
disregard fundamental rights for the sake of our whims.
If, as a nation, we want to return to the principle of truth, then we are
going to have to do, as a people, what--I thank God--all of you have done
here in this state, and what you have insisted in the end that your political
leader should do. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and of His
righteousness." And that means, in our time today, that if there is an
abuse of power based upon moral turpitude, we must deal with that and excuse
it for the sake of nothing; that if there is an abuse of innocence and
vulnerability in the womb, we must deal with that first and excuse the
failure to deal with it for the sake of nothing.
If this means that we have a litmus test, well then I don't understand why
people run away from this possibility. I have a litmus test in many things in
life. Is it somehow intolerant and bigoted if you have litmus test that you
don't want child molesters taking care of your kids? I think that's common
sense. Is it somehow a terrible and intolerant litmus test if you don't want
psychopathic killers to be the wards of the law and the guardians of law
enforcement? We take these kinds of common sense litmus tests for granted.
When they recruit people into your police force in this state--thank
God--they actually do a little bit of screening to try to make sure that
psychopathic killers don't get onto the police force. They actually have
litmus tests about that.
Because we understand, at some level, that there are certain fundamentals you
have to have in place before you can move ahead. As a free people, there is a
fundamental thing we must have in place--that fundamental principle which
guarantees to each of us our claim to rights and dignity. Without it we
cannot move forward.
And if our political leaders come before us and say that they will put it on
the back burner, they'll get to it later, maybe next week, maybe next year,
maybe next lifetime--then we have to tell them that they are no longer in the
lead, that we will not follow them in that direction. Because that is not
anything that will lead us back home. And home is where we need to be. Home
in the sense of getting back to where we belong.
And where do we belong? I think we will remember where we belong when we
remember to Whom we belong. Our Founders knew this because when they set up
this great nation--this great nation being as it is such an exception in the
history of mankind--they made it clear to Whom we belong as a nation.
Someday, I hope before it is too late, Americans, without arrogance or
anything, will wake up to the fact that we really are in a special situation
as a people. We are special because God, in His mercy, has marked out for us
a way that is truly providential. And without all the brutal force and all of
the nastiness through which conquerors in the past tried to bring humanity together,
we have actually managed to assemble, in this place, a little microcosm of
the whole human race.
For centuries people strove to do this, mostly by fire and the sword and
mayhem, building great empires that would someday have all humankind united under
some banner or other. But without force, at least in most cases, and without
mayhem, we have actually managed to gather under the banner of law and
liberty in America the whole human race. We have, like Noah's ark,
representatives of every kind and every creed. And we are tested whether that
human race can, in fact, in recognition of its common humanity, live in
peace, live in cooperation, live in decency. We represent this hope for human
kind.
But on what was that hope founded in the beginning? It was founded on the
simple truth, "Remember, if we all want to live together in peace, if we
want to have some basis for cooperation, if we want, in fact, to be treating
one another with dignity, remember this one rule: you do not belong to
yourself, you do not belong to one another, you belong to God. Treat each
other as His property." From this recognition emerges our humanity and
the chance for self-government and decency and peace. For it is the principle
of compassion. It is the principle of cooperation. It is the principle of due
process and law. It is the principle through which we realize our common
humanity across all the boundaries of race, division and difficulty. We
cannot afford to throw this away. And as we cannot afford to throw it away,
we cannot afford to follow those who are indifferent to its critical
importance.
One last word. There are times, I know, when folks can get pretty discouraged
in the pro-life cause. Partly, I have to say, in the abstract, we could try
to pretend we don't understand this. Because when all is said and done, we
say with confidence, just as we were reminded a minute ago--we read the book,
we know how it ends, we have great confidence. But we're human beings. We get
asked to the garden and are asked to stay awake, and we fall asleep anyway.
This is just the way we are. God understood it. Christ understood it. We
ought to understand it. Sometimes we're going to have those times when we
flag.
I believe that one of the reasons that the story of what has happened in this
state is so wonderful, is that I can actually remember--because I've been
coming in and out of this state--a time when here in New Jersey the Right to
Life cause was passing through one of those little shadowy moments. I go now
to other states where they are passing through it. What I love about being
here today is that it lifts my heart with the inspiring thought that so long
as there is within the heart and within the people that saving remnant of
absolute faith in God's will that keeps some people walking and putting one
foot in front of the other and trusting in His light and in His will, we do
not fail.
No matter what it looks like, no matter what forces come against us, no
matter what lies are told, no matter what manipulated, phony results there
are in polls and elections; if we just forget all of that and keep letting
God be a lamp unto our feet--lighting one foot after another foot in the path
that He sets out for us, trusting that if we follow His word and do His will
we move in the right direction--then someday it dawns again and we see the
great victory of His will. In a small way here you have shown us once again
that the curtain does rise upon such victories.
But let not your joy at this victory make you believe that victory is your
cause for joy. It is not, for it is your faith that is the victory. It is
your perseverance that is the victory. It is your unwillingness to surrender
that is the victory. And whatever it looks like, however dark it may become,
live by the light of that faith, and we shall persevere. We shall prevail to
win more victories, until we have won for this nation's sake that victory
over the lie which shall restore the truth that is the foundation of its
justice, and its true hope, and its true dignity. And in that restoration, we
shall fulfill that great and positive destiny that, I think, God marks out
for us as he has in His better hopes marked it out for human kind. He did not
put us here in order to be a witness to despair. He gave us the great gift of
life so that we could be a testament to His glory. And glory, in case you
missed it, is a good thing.
He created the world and after each and every day, He said, "It is
good." We sometimes miss the point in Genesis, by the way, that He did
that in one day with everybody else; it actually took three days before he
could conclude that man was good. It really did. It took a while. And if I
may end where I began: one of the things that we surely miss in that story,
and that we are being reminded of in a quiet somewhat sinister way in our
country today, is that man was not complete, man was not perfected, he was
not pronounced good, he was not recognized by God as His image, and likeness
until after God created woman. Do you realize that? This is a reminder that
if the woman's heart is hard, the human race is lost. And if we wish, in
fact, to restore ourselves to that hope from which we began and which Christ,
Himself, came in order to redeem, then we must restore ourselves to that
principle which awakens and enkindles in the heart of our women once again
the respect for God's justice which is the true source of love. And by
rekindling that respect, we shall open the river of love on which each nation
builds its future, and through which this nation will restore again its
future in God's will and in His hope.
God bless you.
Question & Answer Session:
Question: Will you run for public office?
Dr. Keyes: The answer to that actually hinges on what kind of
leadership I see in the ranks of the Republican Party, as well as elsewhere.
Right now I am not very much encouraged. And so, I have joined forces with a
number of people who are speaking out now in order to give fair warning to
the leadership in the Republican Party. Now, I am of the view that it is best
to work with the grass roots majority that I know exists in the Republican
Party for the things that are pro-life and morally decent, rather than
abandon it and try to build something else. I think that the leadership has,
in fact, abandoned the people. And what you do in that case is not to abandon
the party--you abandon the leadership. So I will look to see if better
leadership is willing to come forward.
Now, there is a tried and true principle in America, which I subscribe to,
and which has been, in fact, the backbone of this county's progress. Unlike
some other peoples in the world, we don't sit around waiting if it turns out
that nobody else is getting the job done right. Americans are like that. At
the end of the day, one of the wonderful things about this people, which after
being here for a while new immigrants pick up on, is that while people in
some parts of the world, if they walked into a room and saw a crooked picture
on the wall, would walk by that picture a million times a day and figure that
eventually somebody's going to straighten it because that's their business,
in America, after about five minutes, three or four people will get up and
straighten the picture because we can't stand it.
Now that seems like a minor point, but it's not. It is a major point because
we know that if the job is not getting done right, the best thing to do is
get in there and do it ourselves. That is how we built this country, and that
is how we are going to get it back where it belongs.
And this I recommend. I have been attending lately wonderful fund raisers and
events for people who in the course of the last two or three or four years
have gotten involved in American political life, never having dreamed that
they would ever do so. Just the other day in St. Louis I was being driven around
by a lady who is now a delegate from the party to the national committee, and
who hadn't even dreamed three years ago that she was going to get involved in
politics. She got inspired by this, that, or the other, moved into the arena,
and now she is moving up and taking over. I think there are some people in
this room who have that same story. This is how it is done.
Don't let anyone talk you into believing that there are some
"leaders" in an "establishment" and we do what they say,
and that these "leaders" determine the money and the whole election
process is all a lie. Money does not determine outcomes; polls do not
determine outcomes. What determines the outcome is whether we sit on our
butts or get off of them. That's what determines the outcome.
And that constitutes an answer to your question, because I mean to say by
that, that if push comes to shove and nobody else is getting the job done, I
suppose I'll lend a hand.
Question: I feel the way to dig underneath the issue of abortion is to
undermine the precepts of feminism. Do you have advice for women, and men, on
how to fight in this regard?
Dr. Keyes: I have a suggestion, but when I get to it, it's going to
sound simple-minded, I suppose. But before I get to it, I have to say that I
don't know about the experience of other men in this room, but though I am a
deep believer in the scriptures, and while I think that there are some
indications in there that men in the household are supposed to be able to
play some role and it is referred to sometimes as head, still in the course
of my married life I have definitely revised my understanding of what that
means.
It reminds me of the story in the part of Don Quixote that nobody reads
because it's in the third book. See we always read the first book which has
all the funny stories in it. And we don't go into the rest of it in which Don
Quixote actually finds patrons and Sancho Panza actually does become a governor and all kinds of
wonderful things happen that actually confirm the success of his dedication to
virtues and chivalry. And he is being entertained in one of these scenes by a
wonderful duke who has taken him off the dusty road, gotten him all cleaned
up and invited him to a magnificent banquet. And when he walks into the
banquet room, people are taking their seats and the duke says to him that he
should sit at the head of the table. This, it seems to me, is like the
scripture's injuncture to men that we should sit at
the head of the table in the household. And Don Quixote hems and haws and he
says to the duke, "Oh, no, you sit at the head of the table."
Finally, Sancho nudges him in the ribs and says,
"Shut up, you fool, and sit down. Wherever the duke sits, that is the
head of the table." In my experience of married life, at least, I've
learned to understand what I call the Sancho Panza rule: All other pronouncement not
withstanding, wherever my wife sits, that's the head of the table.
That being true, this actually is a sign that that kind of feminism was a
derogation of a true understanding of womanhood. But leave that aside. There
may have been some people subject to the feminist delusion who actually
became women whose husbands could lead them to do things they really didn't
want to do. I don't know that I'm casting any aspersions on myself, and if it
seems like I am, it's because we have a lot of dishonest men in this room.
But my experience of married life leads me to believe that at the end of the
day, you are very careful about the women you choose to marry because you
know darn well that you're never going to get her to do anything she doesn't
want to do. And so you have to make real sure that she's the kind of person
who only wants to do things that you can tolerate. This is why it sometimes
takes a long time.
I say all of that by way of demurring a little bit from that notion that
women have somehow been browbeaten by men into doing a whole lot of things,
including abandoning the lives of their innocent children. At the end of the
day, I think women in this society have got to stand up and acknowledge their
true responsibilities. Societies have been made and unmade by the will of the
women in those societies.
The simple thing I would say in response to the second part of the question,
"What would I recommend?"--well, I would recommend that we take all
the psycho-babble books and throw them in the ocean. I would recommend that
we take all of the feminist tracts and throw them in the ocean. It would be
much better to do that with books than the undergarments and other things the
feminists have suggested.
And do one of two things, both of them amounting to the same thing. I would
suggest that you study the scripture and you follow your hearts. And the
reason I would say that those only sound like two things is because, in point
of fact, if you truly do them you are actually getting your truth from the
same source. For it is the finger of God that wrote the scripture and it is
the finger of God that has inscribed the truth upon your heart. And if you
really, really heed that heart, then the rule number one will be that you
could never, ever, abandon the life of your child in the womb and you know
it. It is an unnatural, as well as unholy, abandonment in which we turn
against that nature which God has given to us. Whether it is done by the
woman or by the man, we are doing that which does violence to our nature, in
the literal sense.
And so, I think, all we have to do, if we want to get back right, is calm
down, turn our hearts back to that source, and do what it tells us to do and
we will be okay. I know a lot of women in this society who are doing just
that and I am pretty sure at a lot of them are in this room. And that, if you
hadn't noticed it, is one of the things that is starting to rally us and save
us. It is not the brutalized hearts of people like Christy Todd Whitman that
actually speak the truth about what women have to contribute to this society.
It is, rather, the hearts of those who understand that there is indeed not
only equal, but ever greater dignity in simply and humbly responding to the
call of one's heart. And that call often means the care of one's family, as
it can mean the leadership of one's community. In either case, I believe, as
men and as women, if we do the will of God, we are doing that which
transcends our gender because we are doing that which, as human beings, we
are supposed to do.
Question: Don't you think that perhaps the male responsibility in all
this is about seventy to eighty percent because, I think it is the male who
conceives the baby? The female is passive; the male is active.
Dr. Keyes: I think that paradigm is a little short on substance. In
point of fact, in the mere act of begetting, as it is called by one
philosopher, at one level, once you have acknowledged the structure of moral
obligation, that mere act of begetting becomes an active obligation. But
without that moral foundation, I hate to tell you this, it is not there. In
the absence of that kind of moral restructuring, if I were to choose which of
the two sexes remains closer to the beast, I would have to tell you that it
is probably men. It is true. Left to our own devices, it's not entirely clear
to me that we would rise above the level of our animal nature.
I think someday, if somebody thinks through the real significance of the
Genesis story, they will realize that that truth is in seed right there, and
that, in the end, the true distinction of our human nature does not arise
until woman is added to the picture. Until that point, everything that is
said about man in Genesis is in some sense also said about other animals.
People always talk about the breath of God going into the clay and He
breathed and man became a living soul. That is the same formula that is used
in all the other animals. That does not distinguish the creation of man from
the creation of the beasts.
So, I would have to beg to differ with you. I think that when we play around
with the role of women, when we do what we are doing in this society,
disregard the fundamental significance of that gender distinction, we are, in
fact, ignoring the truth of God. And in that ignorance, we do great damage to
ourselves. Point one.
Point two: in the mere act of begetting we play an active role. Who wants to
pretend that in all that follows, we play the most active role? In matter of
fact, I can attest to the fact that this is not so. Try as I might, I can't
do a whole lot for that baby in the womb, if the mom is not willing. That is
a real active role. You really have to pay attention. All the women I've
known, thank God, have done so, including, especially, my wife. It was
actually a source of great reform in her convictions about various things she
did in life. She became very careful when that baby was in her womb. And
that's a sign that, in point of fact, with respect to this fundamental truth
about life, the nurturing of that life is the active contribution of women.
And it remains so throughout a certain period where that bond is formed,
where the two have become one flesh--yes, that is what He says, and it is
especially in evidence and represented by the relationship between mother and
child starting in the womb. And that fleshly relationship, that biological
bond, that closeness in intimacy, gives rise to something that all of us
experience, whether we acknowledge it or not. I often used to wonder why it
was that even though in the mythology of our society, the man is supposed to
be the protector in all of this, I often wondered why it was the case, then,
that young children, when they are having nightmares, always scream for their
mom first. Almost invariably. And on the battle field, people will tell the
tale that, faced with the ultimate specter of death, who is it that is called
upon most often? It's mom. So, if we're the protectors, why is it that they
are calling their mothers all the time? I think that tells you something
about the nature of that tie which we all experience, men and women. And
which binds us, as it were, to that adult in our lives who first represents
for us the power and the benevolence of God.
So, I do not believe it is possible to exaggerate the importance of the
woman's role in society, the woman's role in the development of morality, the
woman's role in development of civilized decency, and finally the woman's
role, too, in the acknowledge of God's authority. It's not possible to
exaggerate. And even in the way that the scripture describes the role of men,
I think that what God is really doing is asking women to practice. Practice
the respect that is owed. Be a model of it, so that the man will understand,
because otherwise the man won't get it. If you don't example it, he won't get
it. He will act just like a beast if you don't show him what it means to be a
true human being. And the truth of that humanity which we ultimately come to
recognize is not in the power we have over others, but in the service we
offer them.
Question: One measure of conviction is what security you would be
willing to give up for principle. In saying that, we are viewing in the
healthcare system today, that is largely employer based, that pays for
abortion by law. The church, at large, pays in to that health insurance
system. At what point will we measure conviction in willingness to give up
the security and cover one another on principle?
Dr. Keyes: I think that that is actually a question that can be raised
in a whole range of areas, the healthcare system being one, in which in some
ways for the sake of what we think of as very practical judgments we are
tempted to make concessions in principle. We all feel better about life when
we have health insurance for our families and ourselves. After having gone
through a little period of time in my life where I didn't have health
insurance, I can tell you, it's better to have it. You sleep better at night
that way. And so, it is something that is totally explicable and
understandable. But when push comes to shove, is it always the case that we
are justified in saying, "I have to do it this way, because there is no
other alternative"? Or do we, as human beings, with our God-given intelligence,
have an obligation to come up with alternatives that allow us to withdraw our
patronage from the institutions that are destroying our moral selves?
I remember the days in the South Africa businesses, how all the folks would
stand around and say, "We have to withdraw our stock from this terrible
oppressive government." They made many, many arguments that people found
good. They went around to the churches; they convinced people; big movements
arose. I stood there and thought to myself that this is all well and good for
the sake of freedom from material oppression but what about the moral
oppression that is killing us in this society today? What about all the
institutions, the insurance companies, the phone companies, the movie
companies, the television companies? All these businesses that have abandoned
decency and that are pouring dollars by the billions into the coffers that
are corrupting and destroying America--what about them? Do we always have to
accept the excuse that we have no alternative, even in the most trivial of
cases?
I remember during the course of the discussion that went on some months ago
when our colleagues in the Baptist convention decided that they were going to
boycott Disney, and so many folks came forward and were bad-mouthing that and
saying how it was somehow or another impractical. And I found myself
marveling that although we are supposed to be such partisans of decency,
wanting to fight for the morality of our country, and yet we can't even give
up Disney movies! What's the matter with us? We won't even touch our
entertainment.
Now, there are two sides to this coin. The first is the willingness on the
part of consumers to begin to withdraw their patronage from those who abuse
our dollars by using those dollars in ways that destroy the future for our
children by destroying their moral foundations. And I don't care where they
are, when we get the opportunity, we ought to back away from them when we
can.
But there's more to it than that. If we really want to succeed in that, then
we're going to have to start getting creative. Within the ranks of the
morally concerned in America--and there are so many millions of us--there
are, in fact, people who have the wherewithal, the creativity, the money and
everything else to put together alternatives to these institutions. We do not
have to be entertained by the devil. We do not have to listen to news
reported by the devils that are killing us in this society. We do not have to
accept health insurance from them; we don't even have to accept phone service
from them. And if we start to put together the alternatives, we can rebuild
the economy of righteousness in America and withdraw our patronage from the
economy of evil. When are we going to do it?
And that would mean working to put together the creative alternatives, and
supporting them when they are on offer. And it would mean working, in that
context, to make sure to retain the efficiency and effectiveness that has
characterized Christian people. When are we going to remember this? All the
wonderful notions of economic success that have been expropriated by the
secular economists--where did they begin? From what mind did they spring?
From what heart? They sprang from the Christian heart: the whole notion of
entrepreneurship, in which the individual is considered to be the key source,
not the collective masses under some despot.
Collective masses under a despot: that's how empires and civilizations built
themselves up in the days before Christianity. You had to give yourself over
to some tyrant and they would act in collective ways. Or you had to accept
totalitarianism, the way they did in certain of the Greek states. When did it
become possible for individuals to actually believe that, standing there on
their own, they could, in fact, be self-sufficient--economically, materially
and every way? When the insight was truly accepted that each and every one of
us stands in relationship to the Lord God. And the insight that when we are
justified, in His eyes, by our acceptance of His truth, we can count on His
aid in what we do. That is, in fact, the basis of entrepreneurship and the
economic success that built this country.
So, why should we, as truly believing Christians, be afraid to strike out our
own in order to rebuild decent institutions of economic life that will help
to preserve, rather than destroy, our moral heritage?
http://www.keyesarchives.com/transcript.php?id=58