"Perhaps it is true that Jesus never used the word ‘Messiah’ with regard to Himself (although I’m not sure that He didn’t) but in John 1, 10 and 14 He identifies Himself pretty definitely and more than once. Is there really any ambiguity in His words: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me?’… In John 10 He says, ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ And He makes reference to being with God, ‘before the world was,’ and sitting on the ‘right hand of God.’…
These and other statements He made about Himself, foreclose in my opinion, any question as to His divinity."-- March 1978 letter to a liberal Methodist minister who expressed doubts about Christ’s divinity
Some excerpts from President Reagan's remarks, Aug. 23, 1984 in Dallas, Texas:
"George Washington referred to religion's profound and unsurpassed place in the heart of our nation quite directly in his Farewell Address in 1796. Seven years earlier, France had erected a government that was intended to be purely secular. This new government would be grounded on reason rather than the law of God. By 1796 the French Revolution had known the Reign of Terror.
When John Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he said that his church would not dictate his Presidency any more than he would speak for his church. Just so, and proper. But John Kennedy was speaking in an America in which the role of religion -- and by that I mean the role of all churches -- was secure. Abortion was not a political issue. Prayer was not a political issue. The right of church schools to operate was not a political issue. And it was broadly acknowledged that religious leaders had a right and a duty to speak out on the issues of the day. They held a place of respect, and a politician who spoke to or of them with a lack of respect would not long survive in the political arena. It was acknowledged then that religion held a special place, occupied a special territory in the hearts of the citizenry. The climate has changed greatly since then. And since it has, it logically follows that religion needs defenders against those who care only for the interests of the State.
A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens: The more decent the citizens, the more decent the state. If you practice a religion, whether you're Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or guided by some other faith, then your private life will be influenced by a sense of moral obligation, and so, too, will your public life. One affects the other. The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the State; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the State. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims.
We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief. All are free to believe or not to believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions.
Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under. May God keep you, and we -- may we, all of us, keep God..".......
He loves you.
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“The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas – a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated. … Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.”–Actual President Ronald Reagan
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