Never Give an Inch by Mike Pompeo

Author:Mike Pompeo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

LETTING MY LIGHT SHINE AS SECRETARY OF STATE

The audience with which I felt most compelled to discuss the importance of international religious freedom was the American people. Giving speeches to domestic audiences is not unusual for a secretary of state. But when the secretary does speak in America, he or she usually preaches to the choir on ivied campuses in the northeast or at DC think tanks. It has rarely occurred to other secretaries to get into the heartland to let their fellow citizens know what their State Department does on their behalf. It was also important to make the case to our people about how American diplomacy benefits them—they needed to keep the faith that we used their tax dollars in ways they could support.

I wanted to do that and also make progress on the secondary goal of broadening the geographic base from which we sourced talent. I hit the road for places such as Detroit, Michigan; College Station, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; and even the horse-country town of Bushnell, Florida. On many occasions, I spoke to churches and social-conservative groups, something previous secretaries, even the Republican ones, would never dream of doing. I wanted my fellow Americans of faith—people who could have been my neighbors back in Kansas—to know that America’s top diplomat was now standing for their values all over the world. I told them that we were channeling their own faith-based moral convictions in banning funds for abortion from our foreign assistance under the Mexico City Policy, tackling the evil of human trafficking, and defending religious freedom. The Left went nuts, but I kept my faith that I was doing the right thing.

I also used my engagements to speak about how my faith informs my work. This, too, is an old tradition in American history, though in recent years we haven’t done it as much. Benjamin Franklin proposed opening meetings of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 with prayer: “How has it happened that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our Understandings?” He wasn’t successful, but it was a good idea. In the hours before the 1944 D-Day invasion, a great Kansan, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, urged his troops, “Let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

When I first ran for Congress, with all of 1 percent name identification at the time, I was asked how I would separate my faith from my work in public life. I thought about it for a second and said that I wouldn’t even try to. My Christian faith is the prism through which I view the entire world. Fortunately, the tenets of my faith dovetail with America’s calling as a force for good. As secretary of state, I told a meeting of the American Association of Christian Counselors in Nashville, Tennessee, “I am grateful that my call as a Christian to protect human dignity overlaps with America’s centuries-old commitment to the same mission in our foreign policy all across the world.

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