Ed Vitagliano
AFA Journal news editor
July/August 2014 – Address helped launch political career for freshman state rep in Tennessee
Address helped launch political career for freshman state rep in TennesseeTennessee State Rep. Courtney Rogers (R-45th District) was interviewed on the April 29, 2013, edition of American Family Radio’s Today’s Issues. This is an edited version of that interview.
Today’s Issues: Tell us a little bit about your “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” story.
Courtney Rogers: I am retired military. My father was a Marine, and I grew up in another country. Back in those days you had the Cold War, and I studied totalitarian ideologies quite extensively. What does a retired soldier do? I had looked at the U.S. from the outside – being overseas. Then when I returned [to the U.S.] I started looking within. I didn’t really care for what I saw, things like the attempt to control speech, especially in the pulpit, the redistribution of wealth, the increased hostility to religion and the forced secularization of our culture. And this is in a nation that was founded on religious ideals. I went on a one-woman quest to learn more about our nation’s origins, and that quest evolved. I started with prayer, prayer led to speaking, and then I developed a seminar called “Foundations of Liberty.” It really had been my goal to inspire other Christians and other people to get involved in politics. But the more I spoke, the more people were pointing at me to run.
TI: Let us delve a little bit deeper into that story because you were invited to pray at a city hall event during the 2009 National Day of Prayer. That kind of lit the fuse for the rocket that took you to Nashville as a freshmen state representative.
CR: It really did. That city hall is very tiny and there were about 50 people there. It was a completely new experience for me. I had done this prayer. (See the prayer on facing page.) I may have been the last man standing at city hall because these people kept coming to me and saying, “You need to get on radio, you need to get on television, you need to go to Washington, D.C., and tell them these things.”
I said, “I’m retired now and I’m just a mom.” Before I knew it all those things had happened. I was invited to Washington, D.C., for a 2009 Tea Party event. I was literally a walk-on to open it. It was not planned, and I gave the prayer there. Someone YouTubed me. That is when I started getting invitations. I was invited to speak in Alabama, and I actually went home to Hawaii and spoke. You are right, that one prayer was huge.
TI: Why do you care about politics?
CR: I heard David Barton speak once, and he made a very interesting comment that stayed with me. He said our government is a stewardship blessing, just like our homes, just like our families, just like our wealth. And, we need to care for it. … Why do Christians like to speak as if their belief system has nothing to do with politics? That is really not the right attitude. You don’t separate yourself from it. … I look at ignorance as being the absolute enemy of liberty. … Ignorance has two offspring, one being apathy and the other being arrogance. They feed each other. Arrogance [in] the aggressive men that wish to be in control, take over and seek your compliance. They are being fed by those that are apathetic, that just want to watch Sunday Night Football with their remote [control] and let the world go by.
TI: We wanted to have you on because maybe there are people out there listening who say, you know, if Courtney Rogers can do this, maybe I can do it, too.
CR: Personally, I had ignored the call for a while. I just didn’t feel prepared. … “God surely doesn’t mean me!” … What I came to realize is that God is on the move, and I think that is because there are more of us actually turning back to the Lord out of fear for our nation. I hear national prayers for our nation more than I ever heard growing up. So, I truly believe that more and more are standing up. And, I would just like to encourage anybody – moms, construction workers and successful businessmen – everybody who even thinks they are getting that little message. Start looking into it now and start connecting. 
The American Prayer by Lt. Col Courtney L.D. Rogers (retired), Tennessee Air National Guard
Dear Lord,
We are here today to praise and glorify Your name.
We thank You for the blessings You have given us, for the privilege of living in a nation that is still free to worship You in the open.
We thank You for our beloved brothers and sisters in arms, who have sacrificed their lives in answer to this nation’s call, for the defense of our freedom.
Lord we pray …
We pray for those that are serving in harm’s way even now, all over the world. We pray You give them courage when they know fear, strength when they can go no further, clarity of vision and thought when they are enveloped by the fog of war, and comfort during those darkest times, the quiet pauses between the storms.
We pray that their sacrifices are not in vain, lost to a godless and apathetic nation, for it has been declared to the world, by our own leadership, that we are no longer a Christian nation.
Lord, we confess, that through the decades of our lives, we have watched as our nation was being pulled further and further away from You, and we remained silent. We didn’t want to be labeled as closed-minded. We didn’t want to be called old-fashioned. So today, Lord, we also pray for ourselves, for each other, and for all Christians here in these United States.
Restore …
We pray that we all find the courage, commitment and resolve to offer our time, our resources, our leadership and our lives, to answer Your call:
“Restore Me. Restore Me in your hearts. Restore Me in your homes. Restore Me in your schools and at work. Restore Me in your city halls and state capitols. Restore Me in your Supreme Court. Restore Me in the Halls of Congress, the Senate and the House. Restore Me in the White House itself.”
Without you …
Lord, we know that without You as our guide and counselor, Our nation will never be as strong as it once was, Our people will never be as free as they once were.
So as was told to King Solomon, Lord we humble ourselves before You and ask for Your intervention to help heal this nation, and to protect the Constitution that we are bound to defend.
If God is for us …
For we also know that none of the blood shed by our military brethren, past, present or future, could ever buy the freedom purchased by the blood of Your Son, Jesus Christ. And we thank You, Lord, for Your words of encouragement, left to us through the Apostle Paul. “If God is for us, then who can be against us?”
If God is for us, then we will prevail. If God is for us, then we need only act according to Your will. And, Lord, today we understand that sometimes the best way to follow You is to stand up and lead.
We will be silent no more.
Amen.
