Archive of Current Event
Conservative commentators are wrong in identifying capitalism the cause of American greatness.
Yes, capitalism works better than socialism, and much better than communism.
That said, though, a factor more significant than the political/economic system resides in the character of the people working the system. Good people working under a socialist system will beat out bad people in a capitalist regime.
Don’t believe it?
Many years ago I read a little book entitled Jesus Family in Communist China. It recounted the experience of Chinese Christians who formed a series of communes.
“During the famine of 1942 the(se) communes gave 90% of the harvest to the poor and still met their own needs. Later the Communists needed one acre per family for life support, yet The Jesus Family was able to feed 500 people from 43 acres and still give away 90% of the produce.” http://www.pastornet.net.au/renewal/journal3/neild.html
On the other hand, Russia recently has had a chance at capitalism, but to date it is failing miserably. The killing off of Christians by the communists has taken its toll.
Sure, the same group of people will do better under capitalism than communism. But the morality of the people represents a more significant predictor of success than the system.
But, you respond, the early church in Jerusalem tried a socialistic style government and failed.
Not really. Their goal was not prosperity but getting out the message. These Christians sold and pooled their resources so that they could expend their time and energies on spreading the gospel. Had their objective been economic success, I believe they would have achieved it.
Alexis de Tocqueville was right. “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Beyond that we assert that America was good because it was Christian. Since America has ceases to be Christian, it has ceased to be good—and therefore it is ceasing to be great.
Our loss of wisdom and character shows its corrupting influence in all of our major institutes including family, government, education, and business. This corruption is sapping us of our greatness.
The assertions of top military leaders and congressmen that open homosexuality in the military would be a good thing provides the latest example of the decline in greatness resulting from the decline in goodness spawned by our rejection of Christianity. Either these people are grossly unwise or they are lying for political advantage.
The previous two posts asserted that economic recovery without spiritual recovery is not possible. But even if that were possible, we would demonstrate that being rich is not tantamount to being great and does not ensure survival.
Only reestablishment of Christianity as our cultural foundation can restore economic soundness, assure survival, and engender greatness.
One conservative political commentator recently predicted that President Obama will not get any more of his major economic initiatives past Congress before November, but that he will keep his liberal base satisfied by throwing them small favors such as the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which would allow gays to serve openly in the military. The implication is that the economic issues are the big ones. Moral issues are not that important.
This attitude of economics over morality reflects the general orientation of our society, even the conservative segment. The murder of about fifty million babies did not mobilize the right, but mess with the economy and the Tea Party emerges. Likewise, money issues during the Carter presidency brought us Reagan. Our actions reveal our values.
Putting aside the propriety of giving priority to money over morality, let’s consider the practical issue of whether economic reform is possible apart from moral reform.
My answer is “no.” I will describe one reason in this post, with more following.
We cannot achieve economic reform without moral reform because moral decline causes economic decline. For example, if we had a moral Congress we would not be in this economic mess.
Elected officials know what people want, tend to run on that platform, and then break their word when they get into office. The campaigning Obama promised, “We are going to get those bills to the American people way ahead of time on the internet so that they can read them, and then we will have the debate on C-Span. Transparency is our middle name.” How interesting to watch John McCain morph into a conservative as Election Day approaches.
Had Congress made decisions aimed at promoting the nation’s economic wellbeing, we would be economically strong today. Instead, they have voted to advance the self-serving objective of their own reelection rather than the on economic vitality.
The mechanism works like this. Congressmen get reelected based on directing pork to their home states and districts. Therefore, spending benefits reelection. Fiscal responsibility does not. Therefore, Congress votes for reelection rather than fiscal responsibility. Of course, this process also reveals immorality on the part of voters also.
This breach of faith with the American people constitutes moral failure. The six years of Republican dominance revealed the spread of immorality to both sides of the aisle.
“But the new group, those elected in November 2010, they will be different.” Maybe for a brief time. But they will produce lasting change only if they are more moral than their predecessors. Otherwise the mechanism described above will ultimately drag them down.
Therefore, moral reform must precede economic reform.
However, no one is talking about moral reform, or even recognizing that we have a moral problem. Rush, Sean, Glenn, and Fox News virtually never address the moral problem, and the mainstream media limits their moral concerns to drilling in ANWR.
Congressional immorality represents just one arena in which economic recovery demands moral recovery. More reasons to follow.
William P. Young’s The Shack was destined to be an evangelical best seller. Eugene Peterson’s endorsement on the cover asserts, “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”
An interesting evangelical trait is to brand books that convey concepts already embraced by the popular evangelical culture as bold and prophetic and groundbreaking. That’s what Peterson does here. I must admit that I am not a sufficiently adequate historian to know what Pilgrim’s Progress did for that generation, and I wonder what Peterson thinks The Shack will do for ours.
It has sold so well because it expresses in fiction form the contemporary evangelical mindset. Its popularity rests not in its presentation of some theological truth that we need to embrace but in conveying so graphically what we already believe.
We find God reduced to a jiving black woman. How more politically correct could he make God out to be? I am not suggesting that God is white. However, neither do I find Scripture characterizing God as being hip and cool.
And no doubt Young wants us to get in touch with God’s feminine side, even though Scripture portrays Him as a male. Yes, He can relate to us as a nursing mother at times, but if this inclination represented the essence of who He is, the Bible would have presented Him as a woman.
I had a professor at NYU that observed that, “God created man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since.” Though this view of God does not reflect the one given in Scripture, it does match the God of today’s evangelical community.
This portrayal of God constitutes just one aspect of The Shack that corresponds to contemporary Christian culture. The whole book might be considered a commentary on the current evangelical mindset. Note, for example, the distain for the church. Even the format, the narrative, reflects the contemporary culture.
Therefore, what the book serves to do for us is further petrify us in our unbiblical view of God and life. The book is not ground-breaking but ground-hardening.
This acceptance of The Shack despite its unbiblical orientation reveals another facet of the evangelical approach to life. Of course, as with the secular world, the hallmark of contemporary evangelical thinking is acceptance. God accepts unconditionally, and so should we. Therefore, even though some aspects of the book might miss the scriptural mark, we are not of the narrow-minded, Pharisaical orientation that makes an issue of such minutia.
Rather, the wizened response of the thoughtful evangelical reader looks past those theological misrepresentations and reflects, “I believe I understand what he is trying to say.” In other words, if his intentions are good, we can overlook some heresy for the sake of making the point.
This approach to sanctioning fiction or nonfiction literature makes for a toxic theological climate. In our commitment not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we have left the baby to wallow in some very polluted water.
But the worst issue resides in our failure to apply this spirit of understanding and acceptance and tolerance evenly. While we have all he toleration in the world for someone advocating heresies compatible with our culture, secular and evangelical, we extend no such latitude to those who are out of step with the culture.
When is the last time you heard someone say, “I don’t agree with some of the positions they take at Bob Jones University, but I think I know where they are coming from”? Contemporary evangelicals possess the capacity to swallow the heretical camel to their left, but strain at the gnat to the right.
This bias in toleration toward the left relentlessly shifts our thinking in that direction. Just as the frog in the kettle, the baby is not aware of how toxic the bathwater has gotten even though it has inflicted on him a life-threatening disease.