Guest Blog:Reflections on my Journey of Faith and Politics

Greetings from Cincinnati: Reflections on my Journey of Faith and Politics
By Local Guest Blogger: Mark Mnich
I didn’t start following politics until one night in December of 1981 when my father called me over to our
family’s 12” black-and-white TV to watch President Ronald Reagan speak to our nation about why it was
important that we as Americans support the Polish Solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa. President
Reagan spoke without fear about the dangers of the spread of Communism throughout the world in
such a way that even I, as a then-ten-year-old boy, could understand it. I have called myself a “Reagan
Republican” ever since. And as I watched the Berlin Wall fall in 1989 I thought, as many Americans did,
that Communism was finally placed on the “ash heap of history” as Reagan so boldly predicted.

I never got truly involved in politics until 2004 when I first signed up as a volunteer for the Meriden
Republican Town Committee wanting to help get the vote out for President George W. Bush because I
disagreed with John Kerry who believed that pulling our troops out of Iraq immediately was the right
thing to do. Even on that first day, I knew SOMETHING was wrong with our politics but I couldn’t quite
figure out what it was.

Then one day in 2008, a friend of mine told me about a TV program on CNN Headline News called “The
Glenn Beck Program.” So I decided to give it a fair shot and watch it for a full week before making up
my mind about it. On Friday’s show, he spent the entire hour interviewing Chris Gardner whose personal
success story inspired the film “The Pursuit of Happyness” which starred Will Smith.

I have followed Glenn Beck’s career (and much of his advice) ever since…because he made me realize
how wrong I was about a lot of things, both politically and personally. Not only am I more educated about
the cancer on our politics called “progressivism” but I also learned how to become a better man.

That’s why I drove from Connecticut to Cincinnati: to see Glenn Beck and many other freedom-loving
patriot activists at “FreePAC Ohio,” an event sponsored by FreedomWorks and The Blaze which is
Glenn’s hard news organization. When I learned the city’s motto is “Juncta Juvant” which in Latin
means “Strength in Unity” and that it was the gateway to the North for the Underground Railroad during
the Civil War, I understood why they picked it.
If there was one key message to take away from this event, it was this: we must stand united like never
before or America will fall as the Progressives divide us. In fact, the goal of FreedomWorks, a political
action committee led by Matt Kibbe, is to train volunteers and empower them by giving them tools to
connect with each other. This helps to encourage and mobilize them to assist campaigns of candidates
who defend the freedoms currently being taken away from us by the liberal politicians in both parties.

The first half of the program was dedicated to training everyone on the best ways to run a grassroots
campaign. From sign blitzing to phone banking, from creating distribution centers and going door-to-door
to creating strategies for dealing with “old” media (print, radio and TV) and “new” media (Facebook,
Twitter, and online news sites like “The Blaze”), the FreedomWorks pros in each field covered it all.

Matt Kibbe closed it out by showing us the newest tools available to everyone on “Freedom Connector”
which to date has almost 200,000 individual users, over 6,500 groups and lists over 1,400 events to
attend. My favorite is the new “Legislator Scorecard” which should be seen by EVERY candidate

challenging an entrenched incumbent. It tracks every key vote every Congressman and Senator EVER
took so that we not only hold them accountable when they fail to stand for liberty but also to thank them
when they do which was the biggest “a-HA!” moment for me.

The latter half was focused on encouragement and that delivered on its promise as well. As I watched
Deneen Borelli, Dana Loesch, Rev. C.L. Bryant, Arizona Congressman David Schweikert, Ohio
Treasurer/U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel lead up to the main attraction, there was one word that,
whenever mentioned, always unified the audience into thunderous applause…

GOD.

Even Beau Davidson, who performed at the Republican National Convention, got a standing ovation
whenever he reached the line “One Nation Under God” in the chorus of “America,” the hit song by
Rodney Atkins that he covered. And as Beck also gave us new tools on “The Blaze” so that when we SEE
something we can SAY something and DO something, he reminded us that as long as we do our part, God
will do the rest.

And if you have any doubts about that fact, all you need to do is stop by a smaller town about an hour
outside of Cincinnati called Wilmington which I also visited. That name should sound familiar to Beck
fans…because he went there before Christmas in 2010 when he heard the story of the House of Prayer.

It was first established in 2005 in the home of Larry and Robyn Morris after God told her to open a house
of prayer in Wilmington. As the HOP became better equipped, they began sharing space with the local
food pantry Sugartree Ministries so more people could benefit from it.

But it wasn’t until 2008 when over 7,000 of the town’s 12,000 residents suddenly found themselves
unemployed overnight as shipping giant DHL closed the doors of its distribution center forever that the
reason why Robyn needed to create the HOP became clear.

As DHL moved out, God moved in. The 11 local churches of all faiths in town united to volunteer and
pray at the HOP’s Prayer Room. In fact, so many people signed up that by the end of summer in 2009
they had enough volunteers to pray at all six prayer boards 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I once heard Billy Graham say, “Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people.
That’s where our hope is in this country; that’s where our hope is in life.” Barack Obama talked a lot
about hope during his 2008 campaign…but the people in Wilmington, OH are LIVING it.

In fact, this stark contrast between our President who is using every means at his disposal to divide us and
a town that has embraced what unites us reminds me of something my aforementioned political hero once
said…”If we are no longer ‘One Nation Under God,’ we will be a nation gone under.”

The residents of Wilmington did their part by building the House of Prayer. (Yes, Mr. President, THEY
built it!) Now God is doing His by answering their prayers and keeping the town alive. It is part of what
many Americans believe to be our country’s third “great awakening.” To that, I simply say, “AMEN!”

© 2012, Mark R. Mnich