Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
Shop
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

The insane story of an American who ended up being a prisoner of war in Libya

March 27, 2015
Staff

WRITER

Matthew Van Dyke was just a typical American kid. Grew up in suburbia, graduated college, had little world experience. He decided to buy a motorcycle and ride across the middle east. When the Arab Spring broke out, he returned to the region to help friends he’d made there - he was captured and sent to prison. Now he’s helping Christians in Iraq fight ISIS. Incredible.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment

GLENN: I want to introduce you to somebody who a lot of people I think will say, that's crazy, man. You'll appreciate him. But you would never do it yourself.

It is a -- it's a guy who decided -- well, I'll have him tell the story. He decided he needed to grow up. And he wanted to go and motorcycle across the Middle East a few years ago.

[laughter]

That didn't work out well. Matthew VanDyke did that and then and then he had a few experiences that changed the course of his life. And now he is somebody who is rolling up his sleeves and saying, I'm going to do something. Matthew, welcome to the program.

MATTHEW: Hey, thanks for having me.

GLENN: Sure. Tell me about what happened to you on kind of your tour of the Middle East and you found yourself in a prison for Muammar Gaddafi.

MATTHEW: Well, it's a very long story, but the short version is. I graduated with a master's degree from Georgetown in security studies and wanted to go see the region myself. So I took a four-year motorcycle journey in North Africa and the Middle East and did some filming and made good friends in Libya. So a few years later when the Libyan Revolution started and my friends needed help, I went to help them. And I joined the revolution as an American in the rebel forces. Fought in the war. Was wounded and captured. Spent nearly six months as a prisoner of war. Later escaped with other prisoners and returned to combat on the front line until the end of the war. And later did some film about the Syrian Revolution and worked in Syria. And in recent times, I've turned my attention to ISIS after the murder of my friends James Foley and Steven Sotloff at the hands of ISIS. And so I formed a company that operates essentially as a nonprofit in many ways. Called Sons of Liberty International. And we recruit US military veterans to go to Iraq and consult and train Iraqi Christians to fight ISIS. And we also are going to start supplying non-lethal aid to some of these Christian groups as well.

GLENN: Okay. So I'm not sure if I agreed with you in Libya or if I agreed with you in Syria. I mean, they're all really bad horrible guys. But, you know, the destabilization of the Middle East kind of came from that and what we supported in Egypt. And, again, really bad guys so you kind of look at it and go, I don't want those guys. But I also don't want the other guys coming in. I'd really like freedom in the Middle East. But that's not what's happening.

But now you are focusing specifically on the Christians. And when we spoke last time, you were talking about what they're going through. And there's really a Holocaust of Christians that is going on right now. And they're completely defenseless. And nobody in the United States -- our government is not helping them at all.

MATTHEW: Right. It's a quiet genocide that's happening right under our noses. And the administration is doing nothing about it. The administration supports just Kurdish Peshmerga. And also supports actually some Arab tribes that they think will fight ISIS. But the Christians are left completely defenseless. They were defenseless when they were attacked. The Peshmerga did not defend them. They slipped out the back door in the middle of the night, and the Christians woke up to find ISIS in their backyards. It's a serious crisis. The whole future of Christianity is threatened in Iraq.

GLENN: Tell me what their attitude is like, these Christians who have been abandoned by the world.

MATTHEW: Well, that's exactly how they feel. They feel abandoned. They can't believe the world doesn't care about them at all. They feel like they've been left in the hands of ISIS. They're desperate for international help. They like America. They prefer American help. I've taken leaders of one of the Christian militias to meet with the State Department and make their case. We have a good relationship with the State Department. But help for them is still not forthcoming, and it's really tragic. And there needs to be a lot more outreach about it. And a lot more political pressure put on Washington to do something about this.

GLENN: Matthew, tell me about what the situation is with the Christians. I mean, what have you seen? What have you heard? I mean, there are stories of crucifixions. And I've seen the pictures of it. But nobody reports on any of this. Tell me what they're going through.

MATTHEW: Yeah. It's really strange how little is reported on the crisis facing Christians. I don't know if it's not politically fashionable to report on this, except Christians have been beheaded, crucified. Put in cages and paraded around streets. Their homes have been burned down or blown up. In some cases, explosives have been wired to the doors, so if they ever return home, they'll be killed. Christian churches have been destroyed. Ancient manuscripts have been burned. Women and young girls have been kidnapped and sold as sex slaves by ISIS or taken forcibly as jihadi brides. It's a really horrible, horrible genocide occurring.

STU: Matthew, is there some weird like PR thing they're trying to do here? Are they worried that our outreach and help will look like it's too pro-Christian in the region? What could possibly be the reason that we would ignore Christians?

MATTHEW: I'm quite sure that's the reason. The administration has this view that they think it would like sectarian. That it might increase sectarianism. That it does not look good for the United States, in their view, to be supporting Christians against Muslims. That's how the administration thinks. The administration has already had sort of an anti-US power. Anti-US involvement. Apparently anti-Christian involvement.

STU: Gee.

GLENN: I want to get your opinion on this. We just released something last night on Facebook on genocide. And we're setting up the next Root. And it's on the --

MATTHEW: I saw it. It's excellent.

GLENN: Thank you. And it's talking about the genocide that was happening in north Africa that nobody was paying attention to. And the reason why, Turkey, in particular does not want to recognize genocide. And it leads to the Christians. And we're doing a big thing all this summer on the Christians over in the Middle East. And I want to get your -- your thoughts on this. That, we're not -- we're not talking about -- that it's -- let me put it this way. It would not be an overstatement to say, a Christian Holocaust is happening right now.

MATTHEW: That's exactly what's happening. And it's happening across regions, even. I mean, I've gotten emails from Christians in the Philippines who want help. And in Nigeria. And, you know, you saw Egyptian Christians executed in Libya. And Christians being attacked in Egypt. Everywhere that the Islamic State or its followers, and even not just the Islamic State, but also there's, you know, conflicts between religious extremists and Christians all over the globe happening right now. And it's widespread. And the world knows very little about it. And I think a lot of the reason sadly is because it's viewed as not fashionable to report on it. It's not fashionable to think about it. When I started working with the Christian community, I was attacked by people I know accusing me of being a crusader or you know, stoking the flames of sectarianism. It's just, you know, you can help any group except for Christians is what it seems like.

GLENN: We're talking to Matthew VanDyke. He's the founder of sonsoflibertyinternational.com. And I want you to go there. I want you to do your own homework. I want you to check him out. And if you feel prompted to help fund what he's doing, then that would be something that maybe you should do. People want to know, how can I help the Christians? Matthew, tell me specifically what you're doing when you go over there to help the Christians.

MATTHEW: Well, starting in December, we began training a Christian army. They're called the Nineveh Plain Protection Units. We provide consulting and advising to them for the structure of their force. You know, which men they should recruit. How they should deploy -- pretty much everything helping them build up an army. Took over US military veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we started training. And in February, we trained an entire battalion. So there's nearly 350 Christian men serving in the force. They're very eager to defend their lands and fight against ISIS. And we continue to take trainers. In April, I'll return, shortly after Easter, with trainers for specialized training. And also, we have leads on supplying them with non-lethal aid and build them into a really legitimate good force. They're very US-friendly. They want to work with -- with the security forces of Iraq on a unified strategy to fight ISIS. They're very intelligent, very motivated. Very high morale and just excellent people to work with.

GLENN: Can I ask you a personal question? What is your relationship with Christianity? Why this passion for this? Is it just oppressed people or why? What role does God play in your life?

GLENN: Well, I became quite religious during my years on the road. You know, like many people, oftentimes when things went wrong, I'll admit. I call it a foul-weather Christian. You know, when things are bad, you pray a lot. I especially learned that lesson when I was a prisoner of war in Libya. For six months, pretty much all my conversations were with God only because I was in solitary confinement. So that really made me more religious in a quiet personal way that I don't talk about too much. I feel an affinity with fellow Christians in the region. They're also oppressed. They've been oppressed for a long time and persecuted for a long time, long before even ISIS came. The population of Christianity dropped from about 1.5 million in 2003 to less than 300 -- 300- to 400,000 now.

GLENN: That is phenomenal. And the idea -- and the -- the -- if ISIS has their way. There will be zero Christians in the area. Zero. I have had people from the Simon Wiesenthal come out and literally ask me to please stop concentrating so much on the Jewish persecution because -- and this is a quote. Because, Glenn, the real persecution that is happening right now is with Christians. And they are being wiped out systematically. So, again, if you would do your own homework and find out if you believe in Matthew's cause and what he's doing. All of the information is up on his website. And a chance for you to participate one way or another. Maybe you can donate. Sonsoflibertyinternational.com. This is somebody who is going over and helping the Christians. Again, with non-lethal aid, but teaching them how to defend themselves. Teaching them how to fight. Sonsoflibertyinternational.com.

STU: Now, Matthew, you're going back to the region this weekend. Right?

MATTHEW: Not this weekend. I've decided to stay for Easter. But after Easter, I'll be returning back.

STU: Wow.

GLENN: You ever concerned about not coming back? Have you considered of being beheaded and being one of those guys on the beach?

MATTHEW: Yes, and especially after my friends James Foley and Steven Sotloff were held by ISIS and executed, I thought, what if I were in their position, and also my experience in Libya. I do have a fear of being wounded and captured again. But, you know, if you believe in something, I think you should go out and do it. It's worth the risk for the cause and I believe in it strongly. So I'll take my chances. But we do take precautions. Myself and personnel. And we do the best job we can and we try to do it as safely as possible.

GLENN: I pray for your safety. God bless you. Thank you very much. Sonsoflibertyinternational.com.

Trump v. Slaughter: The Deep State on trial

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The administrative state has long operated as an unelected super-government. Trump v. Slaughter may be the moment voters reclaim authority over their own institutions.

Washington is watching and worrying about a U.S. Supreme Court case that could very well define the future of American self-government. And I don’t say that lightly. At the center of Trump v. Slaughter is a deceptively simple question: Can the president — the one official chosen by the entire nation — remove the administrators and “experts” who wield enormous, unaccountable power inside the executive branch?

This isn’t a technical fight. It’s not a paperwork dispute. It’s a turning point. Because if the answer is no, then the American people no longer control their own government. Elections become ceremonial. The bureaucracy becomes permanent. And the Constitution becomes a suggestion rather than the law of the land.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

That simply cannot be. Justice Neil Gorsuch summed it up perfectly during oral arguments on Monday: “There is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government that’s quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”

Yet for more than a century, the administrative state has grown like kudzu — quietly, relentlessly, and always in one direction. Today we have a fourth branch of government: unelected, unaccountable, insulated from consequence. Congress hands off lawmaking to agencies. Presidents arrive with agendas, but the bureaucrats remain, and they decide what actually gets done.

If the Supreme Court decides that presidents cannot fire the very people who execute federal power, they are not just rearranging an org chart. The justices are rewriting the structure of the republic. They are confirming what we’ve long feared: Here, the experts rule, not the voters.

A government run by experts instead of elected leaders is not a republic. It’s a bureaucracy with a voting booth bolted onto the front to make us feel better.

The founders warned us

The men who wrote the Constitution saw this temptation coming. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers hammered home the same principle again and again: Power must remain traceable to the people. They understood human nature far too well. They knew that once administrators are protected from accountability, they will accumulate power endlessly. It is what humans do.

That’s why the Constitution vests the executive power in a single president — someone the entire nation elects and can unelect. They did not want a managerial council. They did not want a permanent priesthood of experts. They wanted responsibility and authority to live in one place so the people could reward or replace it.

So this case will answer a simple question: Do the people still govern this country, or does a protected class of bureaucrats now run the show?

Not-so-expert advice

Look around. The experts insisted they could manage the economy — and produced historic debt and inflation.

The experts insisted they could run public health — and left millions of Americans sick, injured, and dead while avoiding accountability.

The experts insisted they could steer foreign policy — and delivered endless conflict with no measurable benefit to our citizens.

And through it all, they stayed. Untouched, unelected, and utterly unapologetic.

If a president cannot fire these people, then you — the voter — have no ability to change the direction of your own government. You can vote for reform, but you will get the same insiders making the same decisions in the same agencies.

That is not self-government. That is inertia disguised as expertise.

A republic no more?

A monarchy can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A dictatorship can survive a permanent bureaucracy. A constitutional republic cannot. Not for long anyway.

We are supposed to live in a system where the people set the course, Congress writes the laws, and the president carries them out. When agencies write their own rules, judges shield them from oversight, and presidents are forbidden from removing them, we no longer live in that system. We live in something else — something the founders warned us about.

And the people become spectators of their own government.

JIM WATSON / Contributor | Getty Images

The path forward

Restoring the separation of powers does not mean rejecting expertise. It means returning expertise to its proper role: advisory, not sovereign.

No expert should hold power that voters cannot revoke. No agency should drift beyond the reach of the executive. No bureaucracy should be allowed to grow branches the Constitution never gave it.

The Supreme Court now faces a choice that will shape American life for a generation. It can reinforce the Constitution, or it can allow the administrative state to wander even farther from democratic control.

This case isn’t about President Trump. It isn’t about Rebecca Slaughter, the former Federal Trade Commission official suing to get her job back. It’s about whether elections still mean anything — whether the American people still hold the reins of their own government.

That is what is at stake: not procedure, not technicalities, but the survival of a system built on the revolutionary idea that the citizens — not the experts — are the ones who rule.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

1 in 20 Canadians die by MAID—Is this 'compassion'?

Vaughn Ridley / Stringer | Getty Images

Medical assistance in dying isn’t health care. It’s the moment a Western democracy decided some lives aren’t worth saving, and it’s a warning sign we can’t ignore.

Canada loves to lecture America about compassion. Every time a shooting makes the headlines, Canadian commentators cannot wait to discuss how the United States has a “culture of death” because we refuse to regulate guns the way enlightened nations supposedly do.

But north of our border, a very different crisis is unfolding — one that is harder to moralize because it exposes a deeper cultural failure.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order.

The Canadian government is not only permitting death, but it’s also administering, expanding, and redefining it as “medical care.” Medical assistance in dying is no longer a rare, tragic exception. It has become one of the country’s leading causes of death, offered to people whose problems are treatable, whose conditions are survivable, and whose value should never have been in question.

In Canada, MAID is now responsible for nearly 5% of all deaths — 1 out of every 20 citizens. And this is happening in a country that claims the moral high ground over American gun violence. Canada now records more deaths per capita from doctors administering lethal drugs than America records from firearms. Their number is 37.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Ours is 13.7. Yet we are the country supposedly drowning in a “culture of death.”

No lecture from abroad can paper over this fact: Canada has built a system where eliminating suffering increasingly means eliminating the sufferer.

Choosing death over care

One example of what Canada now calls “compassion” is the case of Jolene Bond, a woman suffering from a painful but treatable thyroid condition that causes dangerously high calcium levels, bone deterioration, soft-tissue damage, nausea, and unrelenting pain. Her condition is severe, but it is not terminal. Surgery could help her. And in a functioning medical system, she would have it.

But Jolene lives under socialized medicine. The specialists she needs are either unavailable, overrun with patients, or blocked behind bureaucratic requirements she cannot meet. She cannot get a referral. She cannot get an appointment. She cannot reach the doctor in another province who is qualified to perform the operation. Every pathway to treatment is jammed by paperwork, shortages, and waitlists that stretch into the horizon and beyond.

Yet the Canadian government had something else ready for her — something immediate.

They offered her MAID.

Not help, not relief, not a doctor willing to drive across a provincial line and simply examine her. Instead, Canada offered Jolene a state-approved death. A lethal injection is easier to obtain than a medical referral. Killing her would be easier than treating her. And the system calls that compassion.

Bureaucracy replaces medicine

Jolene’s story is not an outlier. It is the logical outcome of a system that cannot keep its promises. When the machinery of socialized medicine breaks down, the state simply replaces care with a final, irreversible “solution.” A bureaucratic checkbox becomes the last decision of a person’s life.

Canada insists its process is rigorous, humane, and safeguarded. Yet the bureaucracy now reviewing Jolene’s case is not asking how she can receive treatment; it is asking whether she has enough signatures to qualify for a lethal injection. And the debate among Canadian officials is not how to preserve life, but whether she has met the paperwork threshold to end it.

This is the dark inversion that always emerges when the state claims the power to decide when life is no longer worth living. Bureaucracy replaces conscience. Eligibility criteria replace compassion. A panel of physicians replaces the family gathered at a bedside. And eventually, the “right” to die becomes an expectation — especially for those who are poor, elderly, or alone.

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

The logical end of a broken system

We ignore this lesson at our own peril. Canada’s health care system is collapsing under demographic pressure, uncontrolled migration, and the unavoidable math of government-run medicine.

When the system breaks, someone must bear the cost. MAID has become the release valve.

The ideology behind this system is already drifting south. In American medical journals and bioethics conferences, you will hear this same rhetoric. The argument is always dressed in compassion. But underneath, it reduces the value of human life to a calculation: Are you useful? Are you affordable? Are you too much of a burden?

The West was built on a conviction that every human life has inherent value. That truth gave us hospitals before it gave us universities. It gave us charity before it gave us science. It is written into the Declaration of Independence.

Canada’s MAID program reveals what happens when a country lets that foundation erode. Life becomes negotiable, and suffering becomes a justification for elimination.

A society that no longer recognizes the value of life will not long defend freedom, dignity, or moral order. If compassion becomes indistinguishable from convenience, and if medicine becomes indistinguishable from euthanasia, the West will have abandoned the very principles that built it. That is the lesson from our northern neighbor — a warning, not a blueprint.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

NOVA SAFO / Staff | Getty Images

Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.