By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
DEVILLE, La. (LBM) – Former Vice President Mike Pence did not reveal his plans regarding the 2024 presidential election; however, in an exclusive interview with the Baptist Message, March 19, he did ask for Louisiana Baptists and other people of faith to pray for him and his wife Karen as they seek “to discern our path forward.”
NATIONWIDE REVIVAL
Pence, whose spiritual awakening took place during a Christian music festival in Wilmore, Kentucky, home of Asbury University, site of the 1970 revival that served as one of the significant events of “the Jesus movement,” said he hoped the multiple revivals reported across the country today are the “beginning of another Great Awakening in America.”
He offered that the movie “Jesus Revolution” (about the 1970s spiritual phenomenon) was making a big impact on the nation. “But to see young people stepping forward today at Asbury and campuses around the country is deeply inspiring to me,” he said.
In that context, Pence shared about a phone call with the AU president, who told him the chapel service that began the recent Asbury revival was “’actually very ordinary.’” But he told Pence that at the end of it “’people stayed and kept praying and people came forward,’ and said that ‘God did something here at Asbury.’
“I think that God is doing something at campuses all across the country as young people today, who have literally been steeped in a culture of a postmodern America, appear to be turning back to what’s timeless and what’s true, and it’s changing lives all over the country,” Pence observed.
POLITICAL DISCORD
The former vice president also addressed the obvious political divisiveness in the country, calling it “a very challenging time in the life of this country.”
He pointed out that “the policies of the Biden administration have weakened America at home and abroad,” and expressed that “the American left seem every day to be assaulting the traditional values of religious liberty, the sanctity of life that really goes to the heart of what has always made this country strong and prosperous and free.
“But I do believe something very special is happening around the country,” he emphasized. Foreign troubles as well as domestic challenges are pushing people to seek change, he said. But at the same time people are “longing for the kind of civility that American people show each other every day.”
“I tell people, ‘Once you get 15 miles out of Washington, D.C., the people in this country get along pretty well. But we just have got to have government as good as our people,’” he explained.
Pence said that means “being as principled as patriotic, as committed to life and liberty and our timeless values.” But he also said it means “doing what we can as believers to see if we can raise the debate, argue the issues firmly, but as the Bible says, always do so with gentleness and respect.”
GREATEST SUCCESS
“With a son and son-in-law in the military, I think rebuilding the military after years of reckless budget cuts always is the first priority of the national government,” Pence said, when asked to name his proudest contribution as vice president. “But after that I have to believe that the enduring legacy of our administration is the appointment of three of the justices that overturned Roe v. Wade and gave the American people a new beginning at life.
“I always believed that we would see Roe v. Wade sent to the ash heap of history where it belongs, much like the Dred Scott decision of more than a century and a half ago,” he revealed. “But I didn’t know if I would see it in our lifetime, and to have played some small part in the president’s decision to appoint those three justices whose philosophy of the Constitution set a foundation to return the question of abortion to the states and the American people is a historic achievement.”
Still, he said, work remains to be done, and “whatever our life leads to” he said he is determined to push to “restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in the country.
“I truly do believe,” he continued, “we save the babies, we will save America.”
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
As for work that still needs to be done, Pence identified a looming financial crisis as the “greatest challenge” the country faces – especially future generations. “We have a national debt today the size of our nation’s economy,” he noted. “That hasn’t happened since the end of World War II.”
He also proposed a national conversation about reforming these safety nets “for Americans under the age of 40,” so any changes would not impact anyone at the point of the need or who will retire in the next 25 years.
“I think we have an obligation in this generation, when we can do it without imposing hardship on people in the form of much higher taxes or actually cutting programs,” Pence said. “We can reform those systems with compassion, with common sense and we can set our nation back on a path to fiscal solvency.”
He said the next administration “has to roll our sleeves up and put our nation back on the path to fiscal responsibility and reform.”
PRAYER REQUEST
Vice President Pence closed the interview by asking Louisianans to pray for him and his wife, Karen.
“We believed, at least the last 20 years, that we just wait for a clear sense of our calling; and we have been praying about just having a sense of where we might be called — not next serve — but where we might step forward,” he disclosed. “John Adams said memorably, ‘Duty is ours and outcomes belong to God.’ So, I covet the prayers of any of the faithful here in Louisiana as we try to discern our path forward and see what role we might play in the days ahead.”
