What We Owe Winston Churchill-Liberty Itself

January 26, 2015

I’m indebted to my good friend Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion and Democracy for this excellent reminder of the 50th Anniversary of Winston Churchill’s funeral.

Fifty years ago, a great State Funeral was held in London for Winston Churchill. Britain’s Prime Minister in World War II, Churchill was the man who through the 1930s had been a voice crying in the wilderness against the rise of the Nazis (Nozzies). Then, when appeasement failed to stop Hitler, Churchill arose to fight him. President Kennedy would say: “He martialed the English language and sent it into battle.”

Half a century ago, Winston Churchill was laid to rest in a solemn ceremony in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The subject of Churchill’s faith—or lack thereof—has been discussed for almost as long as Winston himself has been discussed. And that’s a very long time. He first became famous escaping from a South African prison during the Boer War, just weeks before the year 1900 dawned. Young Churchill hated every minute as a POW and contrived to climb out of a bathroom window and escape. As some would say later, he leaped out of the “Loo” and onto the stage of history.

And what a performance. Winston Churchill’s life was the most documented human life ever lived. When I made that claim to some of our FRC interns several years ago, one of the brighter ones challenged me. What about Prince William? We have even seen his ultra-sound picture. Good point. But we don’t know what William thought about matters—from the age of seven. And we do know that about Winston Churchill.

He died at age 90, seventy years to the day after his famous father had died. His father was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative Party government of Lord Salisbury. Lord Randolph Churchill had married a stunningly beautiful and sensuous American heiress. (Fans of PBS’s Downton Abbey will be familiar with the plan: British noble, down at the heels financially marries wealthy American beauty and, surprisingly, actually falls in love with her.)

Lord Randolph died in his forties. He may have suffered from tuberculosis of the brain, or, as some have suggested, from syphilis. Winston always expected to die young. Perhaps that accounted for his incredible energy.

During World War II, as Prime Minister, he was famous—or notorious—for sending out memos with red stickers saying “Action this Day” on them. He wanted a full report—on one side of a piece of paper, before sundown. Winston himself always worked two shifts. He would sleep late, work in bed before noon. And then every afternoon take a nap of 1-2 hours. By this method, he could go well into the wee hours of the morning.

He had almost no consideration for his staff. No holidays. No vacations. No breaks at all. He would smile mischievously at 10 or 11 pm and say “I shall need two young ladies tonight.” He meant as typists. He wore them out and roared at them if they ever got something wrong, failed to double-space everything, or dared to ask him to repeat something.

Now, he was forever chewing on a fine Havana cigar and he had a speech impediment. He could not properly pronounce the letter “S.” That, and the fact that he drank alcohol from the moment he awoke in the morning until well after midnight sometimes made it hard to make out what he was saying as he paced back and forth, dictating. His drinking led some to conclude, incorrectly, that he was alcoholic. “I’ve taken more out of whiskey than whiskey has taken out of me,” he said.

Those who knew him best knew that his whiskey and water was very weak. And it was probably true that it fueled his lightning imagination. [Don’t try this at home. The Lord makes only one such in a century!]

Standing atop the Air Ministry in London during an especially heavy bombing raid, Winston looked out on the city in flames. Suddenly and somewhat surprisingly, he turned to his young secretary and asked: “You’re not afraid, are you, Miss Holmes?” No sir, the intrepid young woman answered, “I could never be afraid with you, Sir.”

He had that effect on millions of people. His courage was contagious. After the war, a Polish survivor of the concentration camps said: “We didn’t have bread, but we had Churchill.”

That comment hurts me as an American. I want oppressed people around the world to say that of my President. When Ronald Reagan told the National Association of Evangelicals in 1983 they should not turn a blind eye to the “machinations of an evil empire,” those words rang around the world. Reagan never said the Soviet Union is an evil empire. He let the Communists howl in indignation. He let them scream in protest: “Reagan calls USSR ‘Evil Empire.” He hadn’t. But just like the demons, they knew who he was talking about. And they headlined it in Pravda and Izvestia. That’s how Natan Sharansky and other Jews and Christians in the Gulag found out what Reagan had said. Finally, an American president who gets it!

Churchill always got it. He denounced the Nozzie butchers from the first days. After barking at one of his subordinates, and hurting the young man’s feelings, he felt bad. He actually apologized and said: “I’m only fierce toward one.” It was Hitler.

Why do we keep bringing up leaders like Churchill and Reagan? Because they got it. They understood that regimes that started off persecuting Jews would soon come for the British and the Americans. They gave no encouragement to the appeasers of their day.

When I was young, we learned a song in school: Hail Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. One of the lines in it is: “Thy banners make tyranny tremble.” Do our banners make tyranny tremble today? Or do they make tyranny comfortable?

President Obama heads the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history. He has virtually ignored the deaths of tens of thousands of Christians while he bows to cruel Muslim rulers.

He is the leading protector of Iran’s Mullahs in the world. Shocking, but true. He shields Iran’s Mullahs from sanctions, even from the threat of sanctions.

Does anyone believe he would use military force to stop the Number One state-sponsor of terrorism from obtaining a nuclear weapon? He won’t even threaten to use economic sanctions. And he has long since given up any diplomatic sanctions.

Churchill’s weak predecessor, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, appeased Hitler only once—disastrously—at Munich. President Obama has appeased the Iranians every day for six years. All of this gravely threatens the cause of liberty throughout the world.

So, today, I thank God for the life and legacy of Winston Churchill. When, at the end of his life, his daughter tried to cheer him up as the weight of age and infirmity quenched his indomitable fire, she said to him: “I owe you what every British man and woman owes you: Liberty itself.”

Millions in Eastern Europe could say that today about the leadership of Ronald Reagan. Who will say that about today’s U.S. leadership?