HILLSDALE, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Former Vice President and possible 2024 GOP Presidential candidate, Mike Pence, visited Hillsdale, Michigan last Wednesday to give a lecture titled “The Role of Faith in Public Life.”

The speech was part of the Drummond Lecture Series at Hillsdale College, an independent, nonsectarian, Christian liberal arts college in southern Michigan. The lecture took place in the Christ Chapel on campus.

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David Whalen, Associate Vice President of curriculum and professor of English said about the Pence visit, “The former vice president is a man of deep faith and principle. We are honored to have him as a part of our Drummond Lecture Series.”

During his speech, Pence discussed the important role of faith in all aspects of life including its critical role in public affairs. He said, “America needs the rising generation of leaders, not only to be smart but wise and to understand that wisdom comes from God.”

Pence urged the audience to have faith that better times for our nation lie ahead. He told the audience, “I came today to Christ Chapel simply to tell all of you that, even when it doesn’t look like it, be confident that God is still working in your life and in mine and in the life of this nation.”

Pence told those in attendance, “I’m a Christian, a Conservative and a Republican – in that order.”

Pence’s first appearance at Hillsdale College was in 2010 and he talked about the changes that have taken place since that time including becoming a grandfather and getting a new lawnmower. And yes, becoming the Vice President of the United States. He thanked the audience for the privilege of serving them during that time and said it was a “great honor” to run and serve in one of the most “consequential Republican administrations in American history.”

Pence said that during the four years of the Trump administration, “we put conservative principles into practice and the results spoke for themselves. We rebuilt our military, we secured our border, we revived our economy through tax cuts, rolling back regulation unleashing American energy and maybe most consequential of all we appointed 300 judges to our federal courts including three of our Supreme Court justices who just this last year gave the American people a new beginning on the sanctity of human life.”

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Pence went on to say that we are in challenging times when the credibility of the United States has been eroded due to our Afghanistan pullout and other events. He also spoke about our debt crisis and the assault on our values. He promised, “From the bottom of my heart… there are better days ahead. Have faith. Because faith remains the anecdote to American decline.”

His speech was about having faith in three things – the American people, the founding documents and faith in God. He talked about having faith in people and being able to see their character as he travels the nation and also seeing how they react in natural disasters. He sees a freedom-loving country with hard working people where we need to have a government as good as its people again.

Pence told the future leaders in the room that they need to speak with confidence to the American people and said, “resist temptation to put what is popular over timeless values and to those of you who aspire to public service, resist the politics of personality and the lure of populism unmoored to conservative principle. Lead with conviction and courage…Speak plainly about our obligation to be the leader of the free world and the arsenal of democracy… history teaches that weakness arouses evil, that peace comes through strength.”

He said that the new conservative leaders of the country need to be a voice for American strength and that if America is not leading the free world, the free world is not being led. He implored the future leaders in the audience to speak without apology about the institution of traditional marriage and never give up on the right to life.

Pence talked about how the Democrats don’t respect the Constitution anymore and are attacking our freedoms and that we need to cherish, protect and defend it. He talked about how politicians swear an oath to defend the Constitution and that Americans need to know they will stand behind that oath even when they are tested. He said that adversity REVEALS, not creates, character.

Interwoven throughout Pence’s speech were Bible verses and reminders that God is a part of everything and is always at work in our lives. Pence included in his speech a 1941 quote from Winston Churchill that was said during an address during a joint session of U.S. Congress. Churchill said, “I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants.”

Pence closed his speech before receiving a standing ovation by saying, “Let’s have faith. Let’s have faith in the boundless capacity of the American people to rise to the challenge of the day and to meet this moment in history reaffirming our timeless commitment to freedom and our values. Let’s have faith in the American founding and be its defenders. Let’s have faith that he who sailed with the Pilgrims is still with us. That’s the role of faith in public life. And let’s just be faithful servants and understand that we have the privilege to live in the greatest nation that history has ever known and let us only aspire through faith and discipline and study and conviction to be worth of it so help us God.”