Shields 1

Caitlyn Shields
Swensen 2
AP Language and Composition
28 January 2015

The Third Awakening

During the early 1980s, the United States of America was going through changing times
that some could argue was for the worse. In just the first three years there were massacres,
murders, plane crashes, reverends going to jail, recession, the first execution by lethal injection,
and a very tense Cold War with the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan addresses all these growing
issues in his speech to the NAE on March 8, 1983 by suggesting, The struggle now going on
for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real
crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root it is a test of moral will and faith (Ronald Reagan).
Ronald Reagan says this with a strong faith that God is the answer to solve all of the nations
problems: morally and physically. In 1983, President Reagan gave a speech to the National
Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Initially, the speech was just meant as a call to action for the
evangelicals. However, the day after the speech was given, press broadcasted the speech to
the whole United States because of how Reagan addresses the Soviet Union (The Evil Empire
and Ronald Reagan). He calls them the evil empire heightening tensions between the US and
the USSR during the Cold War. Evil Empire is now what the speech is famously known as all
over the country (Teaching and Learning). Throughout the speech, Reagan focuses on the
moral values and greatness of America which connected to many Americans all over the
country, regardless of their religious beliefs. As a result, this speech to the NAE became one of
President Reagans most influential speeches given in his eight years of office.

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Ronald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator because when he spoke, he
touched the hearts of anyone listening. He knew just what to say to get his point across, reach
his audience, and get them to listen. In the Evil Empire speech, Reagan wanted to align
himself with Christians in hopes they would agree and support his ideas of America beginning
punishing infanticide, criminalize abortion, as well as stop a nuclear freeze. By doing all of these
things, Reagan believes it will help increase the morality and good of America, therefore
keeping America great. President Reagan uses a light-hearted tone, diction, and evidence to
make his audience listen, interested in, and believe in his purpose of preventing a nuclear
freeze throughout the nations and reinstating morals within the country.
At the beginning of the address to the NAE, Reagan has a light-hearted, gentle, gracious
tone. Throughout the whole speech, he maintains a very optimistic attitude. He starts off with
humor and gratitude in order to get the people in the audience to humanize himself and relate to
the audience. He uses phrases like you have warmed my heart with your welcome...Im
delighted to be here today, and if I didnt discharge right now one personal debt of gratitude,
and the joy and good feeling of this conference, to show his gracious tone and make the NAE
feel respected and appreciated so they will listen to what he has to say. He even tells a joke
about a politician and a clergyman who go to heaven to start off the meeting on a positive and
light-hearted note. Many Christians are wary of politicians and believe they are unjust and trying
to trick the nation. This helps Reagan to grasp the evangelicals attention and realize that
Reagan is on their side so then they will more likely agree and try to do whatever Reagan says
in his speech.
As the speech continues, he gradually gets more serious about the problems at stake.
Reagan takes on a more serious tone when he begins talking about Americas morals and
modern-day secularism; he uses terms like opposition, crisis, intrusion, and tragedy.
Reagans point is that there are secular people in the world spreading and normalizing sinful
ideas and thoughts, and jeopardizing Americas greatness. Despite the tragedies and crisis

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Reagan mentions in the speech, he always keeps a positive, reassuring attitude towards the
problems at hand. He says things like yes, change your world and we can do it, doing
together what no one church could do by itself to give the evangelicals confidence, unity, and
belief that they can and will stop the spread of sin and evil in America and in the world. Reagan
will then use this united energy and adrenaline to call the evangelicals to action and achieve his
purpose of spreading biblical principles to political principles and putting a halt on the nuclear
freeze.
Reagan judiciously chose diction he knew would inspire and speak to the evangelicals in
the audience. On numerous occasions, the president uses the terms we and our to include
himself in with the audience. An example of this is when he says, We must never go back. He
continues, We will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away
our freedom. We will never abandon our belief in God. And we will never stop searching for a
genuine peace. This makes him relatable and shows that he is fighting for the same team as
them as an American as well as a Christ-following evangelical. In his diction, Reagan also
continuously uses positive language to keep the evangelicals filled with pride and motivated so
that they will continue to listen. He does this saying that , your prayers theyve made all the
difference...we need your help to keep us ever mindful of the ideas and principles[and]youve
done better than you know. Reagan is insisting that the evangelicals felt appreciated and vital
to the world in an effort to get them to follow Reagans ideas and continue to be adamant in their
beliefs and spreading them to the nation. Another way Reagan shows his prudent diction is the
way he continuously mentions his belief in God and value of faith. Multiple times Reagan
mentions the rule of law under God. In other words, the president believes that Americas
values and laws need to show precedence to the values and laws of the Founding Fathers
when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. The Founding Fathers were trying to protect
the church and the morality of America which Reagan emphasizes America needs to return the
same thing now.

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Ronald Reagan makes a point of telling the evangelicals about a proposal he made to
Congress about religious speech in public schools. He believes that freedom needs to be
restored and prayer should be allowed and even encouraged within the schooling system. As a
Christian myself, I agree with this issue that Reagan addresses. In my school, prayer is not
prohibited, however it is certainly not encouraged. People will judge you for showing your faith in
school. If you try to pray or even mention religious beliefs during class, teachers will shut you
down and try to move away from the topic. I understand that some people in the public schools
do not practice the same religion as I do, but I believe that I should not feel ridiculed for trying to
spread my faith to others in my school. President Reagan was wise in mentioning this issue in
his speech because evangelicals are very prominent in the idea of spreading their faith and
showing Gods love to others.
To reinforce his arguments and build his credibility, Reagan also quotes well-known,
knowledgeable people throughout his whole speech. He quotes past and present politicians as
well as authors to establish each of his arguments and further advocate his beliefs. He quotes
Thomas Jefferson, William Penn, Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Hyde, and C.S. Lewis. Each of
the quotes he uses from these people successfully proves his points are relevant and true, as
well as builds his credibility.
During Reagans speech, he uses various types of evidence to advocate his purpose
and buttress his credibility. He gives statistics and facts as well as quotes from numerous
politicians and authors. Reagan uses this idea of compelling evidence while talking about
abortion and his belief that it is very wrong and leads to a decline in respect for human life. He
uses a statistic to justify his statement saying, Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to
1.5 million unborn children a year. By giving this shocking statistic he makes the audience
realize how damaging abortion is. Reagan then continues by saying, Unless and until it can be
proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness must be protected. The statistic lead him to be able to make this bold call to action

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of the audience and proved his point that abortion leads to a decline in respect for human life. It
also was used to make the audience more aware of the real problems at stake and that the
problem needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Later on in the speech, Reagan gives
another statistic to give the evangelicals hope and pride in their cause. He shares, Americans
were far more religious than the people of other nations; 95 percent of those surveyed
expressed a belief in God and a huge majority believed the Ten Commandments had real
meaning in their lives. Reagan gives this statistic to the NAE to show that he believes in their
cause and sides with them, hoping that they will too believe in his cause and side with him.
Reagan uses all of these rhetorical strategies to get the evangelicals, who represent
thousands of churches, to persuade the audience that he believes what they believe and he
knows what is best for the country. After accomplishing all of these things, Reagan then brings
up the major purpose of giving this speech. He transitions to the idea of putting the Soviet Union
into a nuclear freeze, saying it is a bad idea and in the end will ultimately make things worse for
the nation and the world. He starts off by mentioning different controversial topics like abortion,
prayer in schools, and infanticide to show the evangelicals he is on their side in order to say that
he is also right about the nuclear freeze.
Reagans Evil Empire speech, intended to be a small speech, turned out to be one of
the most influential and inspiring speeches he gave during his entire presidency (Evil Empire). It
brought up the issue of abortion and infanticide, reevaluate the morals of the world and made
people rethink societys evolving way of thinking, united America and eventually lead to the
ending of a recession, and heightened tensions of the Cold War. Abortion and infanticide are still
very much controversial topics in the government and to the people of the nation today. Our
society had evolved into much more secular principles and our morals have strayed away from
the Bible and Christian ways of thinking. A nuclear freeze was never put into place among the
nations and a few years later the Cold War ended and tensions between the Soviets and
America completely dissolved. Ronald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator

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because he was very talented in connecting and personalizing with his audience. The Evil
Empire adequately displays Reagans speaking skills and he successfully reaches and gets his
audience to listen to what he calls them to do. For the future, Americans need to keep
reinstating these morals the Reagan mentions or else the respect for life will decrease
immensely causing the crime rate to increase substantially. Since this speech was given,
America had depleted in their moral values, if we dont recall Reagans points soon, America will
continue to lose its good, eventually causing us to be less than great. So as an American, we all
need to remember and spread Reagans moral values in order to keep America the greatest
country on earth.

Works Cited
"The Evil Empire and Ronald Reagan - The Imaginative Conservative." The
Imaginative Conservative. N.p., 07 Mar. 2013. Web. 09 Feb. 2015.
Reagan, Ronald. "Evil Empire." Annual Convention of the National Association of
Evangelicals. Orlando, Florida. 8 Mar. 1983. Speech.
"Ronald Reagan." The White House. The White House, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2015.
"Teaching + Learning." Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media RSS. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.
"Winter 2014/15." National Association of Evangelicals. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.