U.S. headed toward ‘moral scurvy,’
Zell Miller warns
Oct 10, 2006
By Staff
Baptist Press

MOBILE, Ala. (BP)--A lack of decency has "become the norm" in America, as Zell Miller sees it, and without strong mediation, a "moral scurvy" will overtake the nation.

The former U.S. senator and Georgia governor, speaking in Mobile, Ala., on the "war over the soul of America," stated: "We must reclaim our lost heritage -- our times demand it, the condition of our country compels it."

America’s moral deterioration stands in stark contrast with its "lost heritage" of dependence on God and the uncompromising integrity and spirituality of its founders, Miller told an audience of 675 people at the University of Mobile’s second annual scholarship banquet.

"Can there be a stable community without the moral reference that comes from God?" Miller asked in regard to the nation’s increasingly secular society. "The staple of character,” he noted, “is God's truth."

Describing education as “the key to moral development," Miller said the next generation must be educated to become noble, virtuous, courageous citizens -– citizens who may help America avoid future disaster.

Miller said he is seeking "to put up a warning sign" for the nation's citizens that the bridge protecting America from moral corrosion is out. However, he said, schools like the University of Mobile are raising up leaders who can repair that bridge.

"What the University of Mobile is doing, and doing so well, is building a strong, new, sturdy bridge, a bridge that connects our past to our glorious future, a bridge to eternity," Miller said at the Arthur Outlaw Mobile Convention Center Sept. 29. At UM, he said, "fires are lit with God's truth and the formation of character."

"Here, the whole person is educated, not a narrow slice of one's intellect," said Miller, praising the university as "an institution of higher education that has a higher purpose, a higher calling."