Chris Temple On Line

My Most Memorable Speaking Engagement (and why those like the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Morris Dees HATE this kind of speech!)

            Over nearly 25 years now (it hardly seems possible) I’ve had the opportunity to speak in front of groups of people literally hundreds of times.  The majority of the time, the topics have included the markets and the economy.  Occasionally, I get into world events and “political” issues as well, depending on the particular group/audience.

            In a relative handful of those instances, I have had the opportunity to deliver what would more accurately be described as a “sermon.”  Whenever I can, of course, I try to use Biblical principles and references in most everything I say; even economics (lest you forget, the Bible is, among other things, the best textbook on economics ever written.)  Particularly in a few of these instances, though, I’ve been moved to deliver a sermon to groups where I perceived there to be an acute need to “get back to the basics.”

            One of the favorite such messages I’ve given—to groups as disparate as the Aryan Nations, survivalists and even your garden variety Protestant churches—comes out of Deuteronomy, Chapter 28.  To this day, my most memorable and proudest rendition of this occurred not in a church building or meeting hall, but literally in the middle of a hay field. . .

            I was invited one Summer (you’ll soon see why I was not invited back) to speak to what was billed as a “White Unity Rally” outside a little town in Northern Pennsylvania, just across the New York State line.  Every year, a number of people gathered at a little piece of vacant rural property owned by one retired gentleman and had a “rally” consisting of a cookout, a few people taking turns and speaking on one subject or another (which usually revolved around holding that, were it not for blacks, Jews, assorted foreigners and the federal government, we’d all be living in paradise) and drinking beer.  Kind of a combination “guys night out” and pep rally for Archie Bunker types, capped by an after-dark cross lighting.

            For a couple hours after I arrived, I visited with some of those in attendance I already knew (most all of them members of what was then the Populist Party, long since defunct) and met some new people.  We talked.  We ate.  Then it was time for those of us who had been asked to take our turns at speaking to the assembled 100 or so people who had come for this “rally.”

            A small flatbed trailer was the stage, literally set up in the middle of a freshly-mowed hay field.  The first few speakers got up and gave a few rambling and, in my opinion, fairly useless talks; but ones which got a lot of attention, applause, hoots and hollers as they were liberally sprinkled with racial epithets and blame-fixing of every conceivable variety.  My turn came; and as I strode to this crude stage and hopped up, I had the same attentive, worked-up audience the last few speakers had left. 

            I opened by agreeing with some of the previous comments that America is in a terrible mess.  Our culture and Faith are under attack.  Our economy is built on sand.  Our money is backed by nothing but politicians’ and central bankers’ soothing words.  Our families are decaying.  Our country is being invaded by too many “illegals.” And so on; all the kinds of things you expect to hear at such a meeting or, for that matter, in those remaining churches in America that still worry about such things.

            I told them though that—given the kind of analytical and results-oriented kind of guy that I am—I wanted to talk about something more.  Something deeper.  I asked them if they realized that, many centuries ago, the guesswork had been taken out of who was to blame for our problems.  More than that, I asked them if they realized what all of them—and all of us—simply needed to do in order to have all these terrible trends reversed.

            Of course, they were all ears; with some of them no doubt expecting that now they were really going to get the “red meat.”  I told them that the answers to these and other usually simple questions were contained in the Bible.  Specifically, the answer to the questions I had posed were found in one of the greatest prophetic passages in Scripture; not in the better-known prophetic books such as Isaiah or Daniel, but—of all places—in the Book of Deuteronomy.

            The first 14 verses of the 28^th Chapter, as I told them, contain all the blessings that God has promised us if we, as his followers, will simply obey and live for Him, and follow His laws.  Israel of old received these blessings a time or two.  In what some call the “Church Age” these blessings are available to one and all through Christ; and Christian nations have on occasion been blessed as they have similarly been—at the least—more in God’s will than out of it.

            The trouble today, I told this group (which was by now sprinkled with a few more confused-looking faces) is that we’re in deep you-know-what again.  So, by golly, somebody has to be to blame!  Who took all those blessings from us!?

            The answer, I said, was farther along in the chapter; but it wasn’t the answer they wanted to hear.  All along as I read of what would befall God’s people if we were disobedient to Him as a nation, I kept reading the same thing.  The LORD will. . .The LORD will. . .The LORD will. . .

            Conspicuously, I pointed out, the Jews were absent from any blame as to “who” it was that’s doing all these terrible things to us here in America today.  So were blacks and illegal immigrants.  The Council on Foreign Relations was nowhere to be found in verses 15-68, as God told us what He will either do to us Himself, or allow to be done to us by others, if we turn our backs on and our hearts away from Him.

            As an increasing number of rally-goers began to wander off, I rattled off a number of other pet groups that are routinely blamed for poisoning America, our culture and more; none of whom were remotely contemplated in these verses.  “Did God say the abortion doctors would do such-and-so to us?  The liberals?  Secular humanists?  Queers?  The Trilateral Commission?  The Federal Reserve?

            “Or did He say that He would do these things; at least until we repented, and turned back to Him as a nation. 

            “In the end,” I closed, “these problems we get all worked up over can be easily fixed.  Just remember that if you’re looking for someone on this Earth to blame, look in the mirror.”

            With that, my sermon was concluded; and the relatively few remaining anywhere near this makeshift stage thanked me.

ONE PARTICULARLY ATTENTIVE “AUDIENCE” MEMBER—AND OUR LATE-NIGHT CONVERSATION

            Though by the time I was through most of the assembled yahoos had decided they didn’t like what I had to say and had sauntered off, I did notice about halfway through my message that I had one particularly attentive individual listening to me.  Out on the little country road bordering the field we were in was a handful of law enforcement officers, whom I later found out were themselves there each year for this particular shindig to make sure that trouble makers didn’t come by to get into any tussles with the rally-goers.

            One of them was a Pennsylvania state policeman in plain clothes.  As I went on with my talk, I noticed that this middle-aged man was paying rather close attention; even if most of the others were not.  That intrigued me; and, frankly, it kept me going even as I was “bombing” with most of those who my sermon was intended for.

            Well after dark when the festivities were finally over, I was one of the first to leave.  While not getting too much of a cold shoulder from most, I nevertheless sensed that what I had had to say was not all that welcome; nor was it taken to heart by anyone but a couple of men I spent most of the evening visiting with.  Thus, I wasn’t exactly of a mind to be one of the last to leave!

            I drove on down the hill from the rally field, and prepared to turn onto the “main drag” (a county highway as I recall) which would take me to the main highway and then back home.  As I turned, I noticed headlights in my rear view mirror that were closing the gap quickly; shortly after I turned, the tell-tale red lights of a squad car were rolling behind me, so I pulled over.

            A uniformed PA trooper came up to the window and asked to see my license, etc.—which I handed him.  Though he had also been up at this rally for much of it, we didn’t talk about that; instead, after exchanging a little small talk, he handed me back my papers and said, “Hang around for a minute after I leave, someone else wants to talk with you.” 

            I was understandably surprised; and, I have to admit, a little nervous.  Who the heck wants to “talk” with me, I wondered, on the side of a country road as it was pushing midnight!?

            This trooper quickly got back into his cruiser and left.  As he pulled around me, a second car—which I hadn’t realized had actually parked behind him—rolled up behind me and turned off everything but its hazard lights.  This time, I got out of my car and stood beside it.

            The plain clothes detective I had noticed earlier that evening stepped out of his car (he was alone) after shutting it down.  He walked over to me and extended his hand, half apologizing for coming up with such a way to get to chat with me; something he immediately assured me was all he wanted to do.

            For better than half an hour, we alternately sat and leaned on the hood of his unmarked car visiting.  He told me that this was not the first time he had been in attendance at this annual rally.  He claimed to know the owner of the property fairly well; and—while he didn’t have anything personally unkind to say about that particular man—made it clear to me his view that these guys are just mad at the world, and really needed to come up with a constructive way to vent their frustrations.

            Having said all that, this detective then bowled me over with his next comment.  He’d been invited before to “join up” with these characters; something which, he said, he had no interest in doing, even though his own political views were fairly conservative.  “If all those guys thought like you did, though, I’d join,” he added.

            Sadly, that wasn’t the case; which is why he never did “join” these guys’ motley assortment, and why Yours Truly has never seen fit to join this or any similar group.  Nevertheless, I was very moved by his comment.  We continued our discussion of the state of America, our Faith (it turns out, he was a deacon in his own church) and more.  Finally, we shook hands again, said our good-byes, and drove off.

            This detective had transformed this particular speaking experience for me.  As I had initially left the rally, I was disappointed and angry.  “Why won’t these jokers wake up?” I was asking myself.  The roadside visit with this man, though, bailed out what had up until then been a disappointing trip.  The ride back home for me was one of great emotion; and to this day, I get teary-eyed every time I tell this story. 

            As I said earlier, I have given this same message any number of times.  I have always deeply felt that until we as God’s people get our acts together, America will continue to decline.  Sadly, however, most people won’t wake up to this vital—yet incredibly simple—fact until it’s too late.  Until then, “white supremacists” will continue to blame Jews, blacks, or anyone else whose skin is a different color for their problems.  Tax protesters will blame the I.R.S.  Conservatives will blame the “liberals.”  Liberals will blame conservatives.  Many Christians will blame “secular humanists” or the A.C.L.U. 

            Until everyone, though, understands where the “blame” really lies, nothing will change.

LET’S PUT MORRIS DEES AND HIS BUDDIES OUT OF BUSINESS!

For those who have spent even a modest amount of time checking into the backgrounds and agenda of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Morris Dees and related groups, it’s very easy to see why he would have a problem with this kind of message.  For starters, he has such a hatred himself for people of Faith that he will stop at nothing to demonize, neutralize and destroy everyone he can who stands in his way.  Incredibly—as was evidenced so starkly in my recent case—an allegedly “conservative” Justice Department allows itself to be used to further Dees’ decidedly different (?) agenda.

More to the point, though:  If those who Dees has described as “haters” were to finally wake up to the fact that it is they who are responsible for all of America’s problems, DEES WOULD BE OUT OF BUSINESS.  People of many different religious/political persuasions would be busy in a positive way in addressing America’s moral and cultural decline, social and economic justice and so much more. 

Dees can’t have this.  The “industry” that he has largely created (in part, as he and the federal government have regularly instigated the kinds of “hate” and acts of violence that they later rail against, and then raise millions of dollars to combat) is indispensable to his own game plan.  The last thing in the world Dees wants is for all those who he has targeted to get their heads out of the rear-ends, stop whatever scapegoating they are engaged in, and work constructively—and with Christ’s love—to change America for the better.

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