Jim DeMint shares life lessons; President Falwell makes remarks

Jim DeMint, former United States Senator (R-SC) and president-elect of the Heritage Foundation, visited Liberty University for the first time on Friday, sharing the wisdom he has gained from his journey into public life.

He began by thanking Liberty for the opportunity to speak at a university that is not afraid to take on the tough topics. He said he has spoken at other colleges where he has warned them about “the dire consequences of academic censorship.”

“There’s not too many places in America where one can speak openly about the truth and the reality of the physical and spiritual worlds, about the faith-based foundations for right and wrong, about the futility of a myopic secular view of our human existence and about how all of these truths must be integrated across the lines of our personal lives and relationships, our careers, our spiritual lives, and our politics,” he said.

He shared the roles he has played as a father, grandfather, church leader, volunteer and community leader, as well as the founder of a marketing, research and strategic planning firm, U.S. senator, and now the leader of one of the most influential policy organizations in the world. In all of those, he said, he has leaned on God’s guidance and not on his own plans, he said.

He urged the students to recognize that we are not only fighting a spiritual battle with unseen forces, but also our own human natures, asking them rhetorically what public policy and politics has to do with that. “Everything,” he answered.

“If governments ignore the spiritual nature of mankind, they cannot govern effectively, and if government polices endorse and promote the destructive aspects of human nature rather than restrain them, they will create uncivil chaotic societies,” DeMint said.

He said that unfortunately too many citizens and politicians “relegate spiritual matters to Sunday morning church and assume that human nature is good and perfectible with the right government policies.”

“This philosophy leads to central control and requires government involvement in all areas of our lives,” he said. “Every problem is assumed to be caused by a lack of external central control and must be addressed with a government solution and every government solution results in a host of unintended consequences that must be addressed with additional government solutions. The leftist approach to government ignores the most noble calling of the human race: the aspiration to be free, to be self governing, to be self reliant and to have a personal foundation that is strong enough to love and to serve other others.”

That is not achieved with government policies, he said, as we must rely on our spiritual natures to help us govern ourselves. This is pointed out in his life verse, Galatians 5:1I: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

President Jerry Falwell followed DeMint’s message with brief remarks regarding Wednesday morning’s shooting at a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif. He said the university has reached out to the family of a first responder and to a victim’s family, offering scholarships. He also spoke about his personal stance on gun control. His remarks are below. (View the full service, including Falwell’s remarks, on Liberty’s YouTube channel.)

“Before we dismiss this morning, I wanted to mention that last night Becki [Falwell’s wife] and I were watching the Fox News reports on the shooting in California and we were so touched by Mike Madden … the police officer who was the first responder to the terrible murders at the community center there, and he told the story about no matter how well you’re prepared in your training to deal with something like that, that there’s just no way, when you walk in and you see the carnage and you smell the smell of gun powder, it’s something you can ever be prepared for. So we contacted his office after that report to see if he had any sons or daughters who were looking for a place to attend college. We offered to help with the scholarships. We also are trying to contact the victim who had six children, who was killed in that carnage. It just blows my mind when I see the president of the United States say that the answer to circumstances like that is more gun control. I mean, if some of those people in that community center had had what I got in my back pocket right now … . I’ve always thought if more good people had conceal-carry permits then we could end those Muslims before they walk in and kill. I just want to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to get your permit. We offer a free course. Let’s teach ’em a lesson if they ever show up here.”

In his responses to local and national media and in posts on his personal social media accounts after the Convocation, Falwell clarified his comments, saying that when he referred to “those Muslims,” he was referring to Islamic terrorists, specifically those behind the attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino. He said his remarks have garnered more positive feedback than he has ever received after he has addressed students in Convocation.

The university issued a response on Monday.