Virtue is not declared

President George H.W. Bush appointed J. Michael Luttig to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1991. In the upcoming December 2025 edition of The Atlantic, Judge Luttig writes:

“In the normal course of history, the president of the United States is a figure who inspires optimism in the American people. The 47th president prefers to stir feelings of fear, vulnerability, hopelessness, and political inevitability - the sense that he, and only he, can rescue the nation from looming peril.

We Americans are by nature good people who believe in the inherent goodness of others …”

This is an interesting take by for former circuit judge Luttig, particularly in light of the politically motivated lawfare waged against Donald Trump prior to his 2024 reelection victory. Let us count: 34 felony indictments by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg; a $450 million civil judgment by New York Attorney General Letitia James; and 40 federal counts from DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith - all designed to damage and neutralize a former president at the ballot box. Add in two assassination attempts, and it becomes clear that America has entered a sobering new phase in its civic life.

Jack Smith and his team issued 197 subpoenas in the process, demonstrating an unprecedented weaponization of the Biden Justice Department against a political opponent.

And yet, despite unrelenting opposition, President Trump presses forward with conviction and resolve. We admit wholeheartedly that we love what he is doing - his boldness abroad, his courage in confronting the woke moral confusion that has paralyzed the West, and his determination to restore law and order to America’s liberal cities. Still and all, the honest question must be asked that if Barack Obama were doing the same things, would we be uneasy? The answer is yes. Which means our confidence must rest not in personalities, but in principles.

America’s Founders understood that human nature is fallen. Out of that theological realism they built a Republic of laws rather than of men. John Adams warned that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” They knew that liberty depends upon virtue - both in rulers and in the ruled - and that moral self-government is the only sure foundation of political freedom.

As Dr. Bruce K. Waltke observes in his Commentary on Proverbs, the rabbis of old understood that character reveals itself not in rhetoric but in restraint:

“According to Rabbi Ile’a [third or fourth century A.D.], a person is recognized by his purse [kîs], his cup [kôs], and his anger [ka’as] - that is, how he comports himself in matters of money, in drink, and in moments of inner agitation.” [b. Eruvin 65b]

In other words, virtue is not declared; it is displayed - in the stewardship of one’s resources, the temperance of one’s appetites, and the mastery of one’s emotions. The same holds true for nations. When a people lose moral self-restraint, liberty collapses from within long before it is conquered from without.

History teaches the same lesson. When a people transfer their allegiance from principle to personality, from the eternal to the expedient, they exchange self-government for servitude. Whether Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, or any modern strongman, the temptation remains constant: to look to men to do what only God’s law can sustain.

The last U.S. president broadly regarded as a world-shaping leader in the mold of Donald Trump was Ronald Reagan [1981-1989]. Reagan restored American confidence after the malaise of the 1970s, confronted Soviet communism with moral clarity, rebuilt the U.S. military, and projected strength abroad through peace through strength. His leadership realigned the West, broke the back of the Soviet empire, and rekindled a global belief that freedom, not bureaucracy, was the world’s organizing principle.

President Trump is undertaking something similar in our day, challenging the post-Cold War globalist consensus. He has confronted China’s economic aggression, demanded accountability from NATO, forged the Abraham Accords in the Middle East, and reasserted national sovereignty against the bureaucratic sprawl of transnational elites. He has rebalanced trade, revived industrial policy, strengthened deterrence abroad, and inspired nationalist-populist movements across Europe and beyond.

Both Reagan and Trump were not merely presidents; they were world leaders who redefined the global order through conviction rather than consensus. Each faced fierce domestic opposition, yet each reshaped the international landscape by restoring moral confidence to the West.

But the deeper truth is this: a nation’s hope does not rest in its heroes but in the moral fiber of its people. The Republic stands or falls on whether we choose principle over personality, truth over tribe, and faith in God over faith in men. A Republic endures not by the strength of its leaders, but by the righteousness of its people.

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Proverbs 14:34

The glory of a nation lies in its righteousness, not its GDP or military prowess.

Pastors and spiritual leaders are stepping into the public square - not to canonize a party or a personality, but to call the nation back to principle, virtue, and the fear of the Lord - the only foundation upon which a Republic can stand.

Gideons and Rahabs have begun to stand.

David Lane

American Renewal Project