With no challenger, Majority Whip Tom DeLay didn’t have to worry about losing his House leadership post. Instead, the No. 3 House Republican spent time focusing on what America has lost: "When the government strays from divine principles and the people no longer know them – or they hold them in contempt – the nation is imperiled," he warned at a Nov. 12 "Sacred Assembly" in Houston, part of Campus Crusade and Mission America’s fifth annual Fasting and Prayer gathering.

Speaking before about 1,000 in attendance at the Sheraton Astrodome Hotel, plus thousands more in satellite-linked prayer meetings around the country, Mr. DeLay noted that Scripture offers "very clear examples" of God’s merciful but inexorable pattern of dealing with nations that transgress biblical law. "God poured out his judgments … in a manner that was gradual and in stages: loss of health, prosperity, and personal freedom; economic recession and depression; … breakdown of law and order; … breakup of the family…I tremble at the consideration of the question of where America is in this pattern of judgment," said the seven-term Texas congressman, who began taking his Christian faith seriously not long after coming to Congress in 1985.

Echoing earlier, historic calls to humility before the Almighty, Mr. DeLay proclaimed "a fast and a call for repentance among all the leaders of the land: the prophets, the priests, the elders and other leaders in the church, and leaders in our government."

He urges that Jan. 17, 1999, already designated Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, be "a day of repentance, not only for abortion but for all the sins of the nation and its leaders." Leading in prayer, Mr. DeLay asked God that a repentant America "not perish, but be restored to the place to which it has been called – as the fountain of the gospel of Jesus Christ for the whole earth."