Gov. Scott Walker has been seeking a secular agenda of union-busting and selling off state-owned assets early in his first term as Governor of Wisconsin. But lurking behind that has apparently been a belief in divine inspiration. A Wisconsin historian made the point recently that Walker’s unwillingness to compromise matched the zealotry of past religiously-inspired crusaders. And the Madison-based magazine The Progressive has found some old speeches of Walker’s that advance this view.

In a talk to the Christian Businessmen’s Committee in Madison on November 13, 2009, Walker, who was raised by a Baptist preacher, spoke about his personal relationship with God, his “walk to Christ,” and his belief in the need to “trust and obey” the Lord.

He told the group that when he was thirteen, he committed himself to Jesus. “I said, ‘Lord, I’m ready . . . not just in front of my Church and the world but most importantly at the foot of your Throne, I’m ready to follow you each and every day. . . . I have just full out there said, ‘I’m going to trust in you Christ to tell me where to go. And to the best of my ability I’m going to obey where you lead me,’ and that has made all the difference in the world to me, for good times and bad.”

Walker said that God has told him what to do every step of the way, including about what jobs to take, whom to marry, and when to run for governor.

Now, this could just be flattery from a politician seeking the favor of a Christian business group. But I have another data point. And it goes back more than twenty years. An article in the 1990 student yearbook of his alma mater, the Marquette Hilltop, features a pretty similar quote about his religious convictions:

Planning to graduate in December of 1990 with a triple major of political science, economics and philosophy, Walker hopes to continue his political activities such as running for State Assembly against Gwendolyn Moore in 1990.

“I really think there’s a reason why God put all these political thoughts in my head,” he said.

Just to update from there, Walker did not end up graduating with that triple major, though he did get an honorary college degree from The International College of Metaphysical Theology, bestowed on him by a local tea party group. And he got beat by Gwen Moore in that 1990 Assembly race 69-31. Moore is now in Congress.

There’s a digital copy of this available at the Marquette University website, so it’s authentic.

Here we have two stories, twenty years apart, showing that Walker has a legitimate religious zeal to institute his preferred policies. It says a lot about how he’s going about his negotiations. I guess God didn’t tell him to compromise.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering where the Catholic church in Wisconsin has positioned itself in the budget debate, they’re siding with the protesters and toward compromise. I learned about that on Fox News: