FOR THE GOOD OF THE SOUL OF THE NATION, KEEP OUR FAITH-BASED PRESIDENT!

A PLEA FROM A SOLDIER IN THE ARMY OF COMPASSION

Right now, I'm listening to Bush speak in Minnesota (he's in Minnesota--I'm not.)

As is his usual habit, he spoke first, and for several minutes, about a volunteer he met on his way in and the importance of the "soldiers in the armies of compassion" to the defense and health of this nation. The military is strong, and we'll keep it strong, and the economy is growing, but the true strength of America is in the hearts and souls of Americans who love a neighbor as they want to be loved themselves and are changing this nation one heart, one soul, one citizen at a time.

Not long ago, John Kerry told a bunch of leftist Hollywood radicals who had just spent the evening trashing the president that THEY represented the "heart and soul of America."

Personally, I'm voting for the man who wants America's soul to be healthy and free--not nasty, perverse, and sick.

As a soldier in the army of compassion, I and many of my fellows are worried about the possibility of a Kerry presidency. We don't want to go back to the days when the federal grant system was a closed door to those who dared to do their charitable work out of a heart for God. We don't want to go back to the time when start-up funds were available only to those willing to take the cross off the door. We appreciate the wisdom of the president who tells us that "government can't change the hearts of men and women. Faith can."

Under president Bush, we have seen faith-based institutions become competitive with other, less effective helping agencies. Dan Burton--who was the originator of the "charitable choice" legislation that started this whole ball rolling in the previous administration--believed that faith-based institutions would prove more cost-effective than those that ran primarily on paid staff. President Bush opened that door wider, took that chance, and he was right to do so.

Against long-standing competition, faith-based institutions have begun to win those funds, with millions of dollars now going to thousands of organizations and new programs to help children of prisoners, at-risk children, adults with substance abuse problems, the homeless, the hungry, the poor, and the disabled. These soldiers are doing their work in the way that only they can, with a cup of cold water and a kind word, with due regard for the dignity and worth of every human being as a child of God. And president Bush's projected 2005 budget asks for $350 million in new project funding, to continue the process of helping Americans by treating them as human beings, not projects, or numbers. It is a small number, as federal budget appropriations go, but we can do much more with it than one might think.

Moreover, we don't expect to stay on the government's dime. These funds are primarily start-up costs, and most have matching requirements. All we require is a chance to prove the viability of our programs. Once they're humming along, we expect to bring them to self-sufficiency. Our very nature is to take the little and watch it grow, to teach the man to fish, instead of just feeding him one. It is no different with the programs themselves. Just as we aim to train people to move off assistance and eventually return to help those newly in need, so we expect to use government funds to build the infrastructure needed to do the work of the long-term, work we will shoulder ourselves as the programs mature.

There are other faith considerations at stake this time, too. Under no other president in memory have people of faith felt they had an advocate in the White House, willing to protect their rights against the ever-increasing onslaught of ACLU and fringe-kook lawsuits bent on scrubbing every vestige of God from the public square. We have no reason to believe that all the gains we have seen under the Bush administration would be continued under a Kerry regime. In fact, Kerry's total unwillingness to apply the faith he claims to be his to anything in public life strongly argues otherwise.

And we are concerned as to the people who travel with Kerry on his ideological highway. Despite the token presence of Jesse Jackson, we are disturbed at the paucity of religious sensibility in the Kerry campaign. Their "religious advisors" have quickly been let go, as the campaign found their liberal brand of religion incompatible with the voters they were trying to court. Not quite as awkward as Dean, Kerry still presents his faith almost as if he is ashamed of it. "I was an altar boy" rings false to us, as false as Teresa's invocation of her late Republican husband. We don't understand a man who claims a core belief he won't act on. It's the very opposite of who we are.

The soldiers in this army have been pleased to have an earthly commander who knows his place under the Heavenly Commander in Chief. We understand a man who prays, who reads Oswald Chambers on a daily basis, who talks to God before he orders the instruments of battle aimed at human beings. We understand a man whose faith permeates his life, and who acts to do what he knows to be right even when he knows it will not be popular, here or abroad.

I can't give you the statistics. I know that, according to polls, the vast majority of Americans serving in Iraq favor the president. He is their commander in chief, and they seem pleased with him. In the armies of compassion, there are Democrats and Republicans, all races, all creeds. But my gut tells me, this year, we are standing behind the US commander in chief, because he knows he is commanded by OUR Commander-in-Chief.

May God bless the President and the United States of America.