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Our nation is in the grip of an overwhelming, seemingly inescapable malaise, not because our government hasn't done enough for us, but because it has tried to do too much. Over the decades, "government" has mutated into "big government," and its weight is killing us. Recent massive efforts to stimulate the economy or save certain sectors of it through increased government intervention and spending, far from helping us, have only added to the fog of uncertainty and oppression.
Washington's presumed role of always knowing what is best for every aspect of our lives is over. One by one, people are waking up and realizing that perhaps they know what is best for themselves, their families, their local communities and their states. The Tea Partymovement is not just an expression of disfavor with how things get done in government. It is the promise of a tectonic shift of decentralization and reduction of government.
Great Awakenings have been periods in our country when religion has become intensely personal for individuals. However, the beginnings of this great awakening we now behold is not religious in nature; it is purely secular. It deals not with church institutions, but with our government; not with the enlivening of ancient scriptures, but with bringing to life our founding documents; not with each individual's incorporation into a congregation, but rather our relationships within our local communities; not with eternal salvation, but with liberty experienced in the here and now.
One important hallmark is exactly the same: This awakening deals with truth. Our founding principles, as displayed to us in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, no longer belong exclusively to the realms of history and scholarly study. These truths have come to life for millions of Main Street Americans in a very powerful way.
For more than 200 years, the United States has been a repository of the most incredible truth in the world about man's desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and how to secure these as a nation. In some ways, this truth has been in a deep freeze just as a steak might safely be saved in your freezer at home. If you offer a frozen steak to a hungry guest, it's of no practical use to him. But if you put that steak on the grill with a fire under it, suddenly the fat starts to sizzle, the juices begin to run, and you begin to smell the aroma of the roasting meat. That steak becomes enticing to the hungry person. The Tea Party movement is the vehicle, the tiny match, by which the fire is lit under old truths so that even those who have never given a thought to their unalienable personal rights and the role of government now have a voracious hunger to experience these truths in their own lives.
Men and women across this great land are on fire with zeal for our founding principles, and that zeal is spreading like a wildfire. They are willing to invest their lives to protect and uphold these truths for the sake of their children and for the sake of their country to preserve the one nation on earth fated to be a city on a hill for all the world to see.
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