The President

by Parker Hudson

  When the applause died down, he paused and again surveyed the silent chamber. “There will be much more to do if and when we have the opportunity to work together with the men and women of such a Congress next year, but for now our last proposal concerns laws on individual behavior and morality. I know that a year ago I advocated laws cut clearly from a belief in the humanist worldview. But I’m standing here tonight admitting to you that I was wrong. It does matter what types of behavior we lift up as the standards for our society. Simply stated, once we depart from God’s laws, where do we stop? Our only safe harbor is provided by him. And the consequences of violating those laws are already obvious for all to see in our society, primarily in our embattled families and in the waves of violence.

  “So we will propose laws and rules—or encourage the states to do so where more appropriate—against abortion, polygamy, homosexual activity, assisted suicide—those activities God’s higher authority says are wrong and for which there are societal consequences when disobeyed. We cannot say we believe in a God-centered worldview if we ignore how he has instructed us to behave.

  “Now everything we have proposed in this list of programs must wait until you decide, at the election in November, because we will not impose godly rules on a nation that denies that God is important. If you acknowledge his authority and elect such a Congress, then we will push for the fine-tuning of laws and programs similar to these. But in one case I can’t wait. That is abortion. Last year I signed an executive order allowing full-term abortions in the federal health care system, which was a terrible mistake, and for which I have asked God’s forgiveness many times. Tomorrow I will rescind that order, returning to the previous situation of first trimester abortions only. And then we will start doing everything we can within the existing laws to discourage all abortions. The deaths of so many innocent babies simply cannot be ignored until November. But in all other cases, we’ll leave every law and program in place, while we campaign for and with those who share God’s worldview on these and other issues.

  “So tonight we’ve asked this nation’s most fundamental and important question: whom will we serve, God or man? As you’ve seen, from the answer to that one question inevitably flows the answers to many issues that have frustrated and bothered us for years. The key is to answer the first question first. The rest then follows.

  “So, my friends, that is the real state of our union. We have a terrible, fundamental identity crisis about who we are. That’s why our legislation is deadlocked, not able to go in any one direction.

  “I’m proposing that we solve that crisis with our vote, just as the Israelites did. I’m asking you to vote in November to follow the Lord, as our forefathers did, by electing men and women not just of good humanist character, but who have God’s view of the world in their hearts and a willingness to turn this nation around in their minds.

  “Now again, I’m not naive enough to tell you that electing good people or changing our institutions will directly make everything wonderful in our country. In order for our problems to be reduced, we as individuals must return one by one to God’s worldview and learn to submit ourselves to his teaching. That’s how our nation will fundamentally change, one heart at a time. But we can start that process and make it more possible for our hearts to hear me truth by taking the step I’ve proposed tonight. It’s crucial. It’s fundamental. And I’m convinced that God, who has blessed us and protected us beyond all measure, is watching and waiting to see what we’ll do in nine months. Will we turn back to him and allow him to heal us? Or will we turn away from him once and for all, and suffer the consequences?

  “Please think, pray, and read about what you have heard tonight. This will be the most important election this nation has held since before the Civil War. Carrie and I stand ready to help all those men and women who share our faith and a God-centered worldview, who want to run for office themselves or who want to assist others. And we’ll debate anyone who has a different opinion. But our nation’s future is not up to me—it’s truly now up to you, the voters.”

  Again William paused. A peace seemed to descend on him as he slowly surveyed the chamber and concluded, “I’ve reminded you about the vote Joshua called for among the Israelites. Well, with total humility, I want to conclude tonight as Joshua did, thirty-five hundred years ago. Carrie and I pray that each of you, each family, will make the important commitment we’ve outlined here. But whether you do or not, our own way is clear. I’m going to read now from the last chapter of Joshua’s book:

  Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness...serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.... But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

  BOOK THREE

  19

  The Bible, the Word of God, has made a unique contribution in shaping the United States as a distinctive and blessed nation.... Deeply held convictions springing from the Holy Scriptures led to the early settlement of our Nation.... Biblical teaching inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

  UNITED STATES CONGRESS PUBLIC LAW 97-280

  96 STAT. 1211

  OCTOBER 4, 1982

  Immediately After The Address

  When William ended his State of the Union address there was strong applause and even some shouts of praise. But it was not like the previous year, or most years before. It was not an orchestrated hoopla, but a serious response to a speech that even William’s detractors knew had taken immense courage to deliver and that managed to touch most of those present despite its difficult content and its call for a different kind of Congress.

  There were nevertheless some obvious dissenters. While two Supreme Court justices stood with most of the elected officials and clapped, three stood without clapping, and four remained silently seated.

  After acknowledging the response, William turned and shook hands with the Speaker of the House. When he glanced over at the vice president, she leaned down toward him, not offering her hand, and smiling only for the cameras she knew were on them, said in a low voice, “What a crock! You should be ashamed. I’d say you’re finished, you self-righteous idiot. What a waste!”

  “Patricia, before you write off what I said, you ought to read—”

  “Give me a break, William,” she interrupted, leaning back but still smiling. “I don’t care about your distorted version of history. I just care about now. What happened a couple of hundred years ago isn’t important. See you.” And she turned and stepped down from the podium.

  William turned and made his way back through the still applauding body of the chamber, shaking hands and smiling politely, but overall looking subdued. He glanced up briefly and got a thumbs-up from a beaming Carrie, while Robert and Katherine applauded next to her.

  With the network picture still focused on William, Leslie and Ryan looked at each other off-camera. Ryan shook his head in disbelief and began his voice-over, “And so there you have one of the most unexpected and unorthodox State of the Union addresses ever delivered, I would venture to say. Leslie...”

  “It would certainly get my vote in that category, Ryan. And speaking of a vote, wasn’t that an extraordinary challenge the president made, to draw the line in the sand in January for the elections in November?”

  “Yes. But even more than those political overtones, I’m frankly amazed by the whole content—really the point of view of the speech. Here’s a man we’ve all known to be forthright in his political preferences, suddenly changing drastically and hitting the nation with an entirely new agenda—no, a whole new way of thinking—one year into his administration. I wonder if the American people will feel short-changed by the sudden flip-flop of the man they thought they had elected as their president?”

  At that moment William exited the House chamber, and the red camera light in the studio came on.

  “That could well be, Ryan,”
Leslie said, looking at him, then into the camera lens. “You know, here at the U. S. Network we recently heard from a well-placed source that William Harrison had undergone a total Christian conversion, and we were checking on it when this happened. Obviously the president has been through quite a transformation, and I guess some might even question his ability to govern.”

  “That thought certainly entered my mind, Leslie,” Ryan answered, the camera angle shifting to show a floodlit picture of the White House behind the respected newscaster. “Some will wonder whether he can correctly maintain the constitutional separation of church and state, now that he’s been through this extreme conversion.”

  Leslie smiled. “Remember, Ryan, he now says that wall of separation has never existed!”

  “Yes, that was incredible, wasn’t it?” Ryan said, “Let’s get an expert opinion. Tom Hankins has reported on constitutional issues for the U. S. Network for ten years, and he’s here with us tonight. Tom,” Ryan said, looking to his left, “what do you make of the president’s speech, particularly the part about how the founders never meant there to be a wall of separation between church and state?”

  The camera came on in front of the network reporter seated just to the right of the two anchorpersons. He gave a small smile and shook his head a bit. “Ryan, Leslie, I’ve obviously never heard anything quite like it. Nobody has. I’m afraid that whatever the authors of the Constitution may have meant, the president is bucking a Supreme Court that has clearly stated for at least the past fifty years that the document means what the court interprets it to mean, like it or not. And now he’s saying, in essence, that they’ve been wrong in at least several key areas, and he’s calling them on it. It should really be interesting, during this time period leading up to the election. But as for the ‘wall of separation between church and state,’ he’s right that only the words ‘of and ‘and’ appear in the First Amendment. None of the rest of them is even there.”

  “Really?” Leslie asked, and it was obvious that her question was genuine.

  “The term never appears in the Constitution or the amendments. It comes from a letter written years later by Thomas Jefferson, who wasn’t even in the country when the Constitution was drafted or adopted—he was our ambassador to France at the time. And, frankly, Jefferson probably meant the prohibition he described in that later letter to go only one way—the state not interfering with the church. He did lots of things—just one of them was proposing federal funds to teach religion to Native Americans—that would indicate he felt the church ought to have a pretty strong influence on the state.”

  “Um, I see,” Ryan smiled. “Thanks, Tom. As we’ve said, the president has drawn a line in the sand where the election, and really also where the Supreme Court, are concerned, flying in the face of almost fifty years of rulings by our nation’s highest judicial body. We’ll come back to you, Tom, but now...”

  BOSTON AND ATLANTA—“I don’t know, Bruce,” Rebecca said, clicking off the post-election analysis from her sofa. “I really have to say that I lean more toward the first worldview, that God is in charge.”

  “You do? Come on, Rebecca, don’t you flip out on me, too! When was the last time some god spoke to you?”

  Rebecca was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I guess never, Bruce. I know it sounds odd, coming from me. I was struck when William said that both worldviews can’t be true—either God matters, and then he matters for everything, or else he doesn’t matter for anything. But I’ve been dodging that truth and basically believing whatever I wanted from either view when it suited me, which I guess is really a form of deception. I can understand what William’s saying—you can’t really have it both ways, and you have to choose.”

  “And what you’re saying is that you’d choose the first worldview?” he asked.

  “Tonight? I have to think about it more, Bruce, but if I had to choose now, I guess I would, because it’s the one with God and with hope, and I couldn’t be a nurse if I didn’t believe in God and in hope.”

  “You can believe in people.”

  “I do, Bruce. But there has to be more. If that’s all there is, then like William said, right and wrong can change all the time. What’s murder one year might be someone’s ‘ultimate solution’ the next. No, William’s right to make us choose, and I guess I’d have to choose God.”

  “I can’t believe this! First Mary, then Jennifer, then William, now you. Do you all have some irrational disease? Don’t leave me, Rebecca, not now. I need you.”

  “I didn’t say I was leaving you, Bruce. Where did you get that idea?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just can’t imagine living with someone who believes in what William was talking about—it’s crazy!”

  “Then that would be you leaving me, wouldn’t it?”

  There was silence over the phone line.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “it’s been a long night, and I know you’re very tired from all you’re going through. Let’s talk again tomorrow. And I hope you come home soon.”

  She could feel his tired smile across the miles. “Thanks. I hope I come home soon, too. And I am tired. I love you, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  A MEDITERRANEAN PORT—At the end of the speech, while William was still leaving the House chamber, Sadim stood up from his seat, turned off the television, and shook Kolikov in his chair. The captain dozed on his bunk, his responsibilities as their host not able to overcome his fatigue.

  Agitated, Sadim shook his associate again and, when the Russian was awake, asked him, “Kolikov, can we be ready by late October, a month early?”

  “Why?” his colleague asked, still a bit groggy.

  “Never mind Just answer me. Can we finish all our work and depart in time to be there in early November?”

  “Well, we’d have to push, but yes, barring some unforeseen problem, that should be possible, if we had to.”

  Sadim stood up straight again in the darkened cabin, his own fatigue wiped away by the news he’d heard tonight. “Good. Very good.” He allowed himself a small smile. “Then make it so.”

  WASHINGTON—As the presidential motorcade pulled away from the Capitol for the short ride back to the White House, William sat back in the seat, Carrie beside him, their hands clasped together. Robert and Katherine sat across from their parents.

  “What a great speech, Dad,” Robert said. “How do you feel?”

  “Exhausted, I guess.” William smiled and squeezed Carrie’s hand. “But also exhilarated and at peace. How did it seem from where you sat, Carrie?”

  “Fine, just fine. I was so proud of you. You told the truth, whatever else happens. Finally, someone told the truth. Thank you. And I’m sure many, many people in our nation thank you.”

  “But will a majority agree with us?”

  “We’ll see. There’s almost ten months left for the nation to read and to consider, dear. That’s longer than you’ve had!”

  “But they won’t have the teachers we had,” William said.

  “Maybe you could arrange that, Dad,” Katherine interjected.

  “Maybe we can. But for now let’s thank God for allowing our family to be used for his purpose tonight. Katherine, why don’t you start?”

  As the limousine made its way behind its escort, the Harrison family bowed their heads and prayed fervently, lifting up heartfelt thanksgiving, praise, and requests for protection—interceding for the future of the nation.

  The next morning while it was still dark William was tying his tie in front of his mirror in their bedroom, when Carrie came in, still in her bathrobe, holding three newspapers.

  “Looks like we’ve sent most of the press into orbit,” she said, laughing. “Including last night’s newscasts and this morning’s newspapers, there’s everything from you’ve got your facts wrong to you’ve lost your mind and should be impeached for incompetence.”

  “I guess I expected that, at least from the folks in New York and Washington. Maybe in other places they’ll
be more sympathetic. But we knew there’d be division. How could there not be? For all the people like the Prescotts and Sullivans who called last night, I’m sure there are at least an equal number who share the views of those editorials.” He turned to her as he finished his tie, then slipped on his coat. “You know what worries me now?”

  “What?”

  “All the people I see every day whom I’ve been around a long time. Most of them hardly ever say anything to me. Like Barbara’s typist, or the Secret Service detail. I’ve got knots in my stomach—I know it’s crazy, but I do— because I’ve just completely bared my soul to everyone, live and in color, and now I don’t know if those people, when I see them today, will be thinking that I’m right, wrong, or crazy. Will they be silently laughing at me? And then there’s our meeting of the inner team at nine. What will they say? Will some of them quit?”

  “Maybe so. But that’s one of the reasons why you felt led to do it this way, so everyone would hear your convictions at the same time. I suspect you’ll hear both the best and the worst today, as God or otherwise moves people to respond to your words and to your challenge. But we know you spoke the truth, and that this nation needs to return to a godly foundation for its laws. So I guess you’ll just have to be content with being God’s instrument to bring the division Jesus talked about. You told people to choose, so we can’t really be surprised when they do.”

  William gave Carrrie a hug. “Thanks, honey, I needed that! I love you so much. But please pray. I know we did the right thing, but I suspect the next few days are going to be a little tough as we all try to figure out what God has planned next.”