Ok, now I am getting email that I have been too depressing in the last two posts. I agree that I have written the bad news, but things really are bad. Let's take a look at how we got here and what we can change.
Several problems have developed over the past 30 years that have led directly to this unique set of problems.
1. The basics of our economy have moved from the provision of tangible goods and services to a high percentage of intangibles. Now, some are proud to call this the "information age" or the "digital economy," but the problem of which I speak is the vast number of people who now make even more vast sums of money by trading either words or increasingly meaningless pieces of paper. 30 years ago, the top earners in our economy, for the most part, were doctors, lawyers, bankers and business owners. They offered tangible goods and services that most people needed and they were rewarded for their efforts. Importantly, their rewards were generally in line with their level of training and in line with the communities in which they served. A doctor in the Loop of Chicago generally made more than a doctor in Selma, AL, but the economic relationship between each doctor and his clientele remained abut the same as it compares to cost of living in each area, etc. Today, those very same people are not anywhere near the stratospheric sums earned by Wall Street traders, investment bankers and CEOs of high profile public companies. In case you haven't been keeping a scorecard, those are the people primarily responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves. Recent news stories tell us of one CEO who led a company for 3 weeks, and got a $30 million "golden parachute" for closing the company. THREE WEEKS! Banks can now multiply every actual greenback on deposit by as much as 60 times through loans, meaning that they are "earning" money that is backed by nothing, except a series of promises by increasingly unreliable debtors or a series of "securities" that aren't. These people create nothing of value, they purvey nothing of value and they make millions and millions of dollars for doing it.
2. In the last 3o years we have seen an increasing "lawyerization" of the American public. That coincides almost precisely with the "post-modern" legal system we now have. I call it "post modern" in that most trials, as well as other legal activities, have devolved into "who can write and say various words in the best combinations" rather than a search for the truth or the creation of a contract that is fair to all with adequate compensation for any services rendered. This has been pushed by lawyers, but the American public has pushed lawyers to keep heading in this direction. The poster boy for this increasingly meaningless system is none other than John Edwards, former plaintiff's attorney, serial Presidential candidate, and someone who makes more flesh crawl than fingernails on a chalk board ever did.
3. Increasing greed, publicly, privately, legally, financially and morally is sinking our country more rapidly that anything else. Indeed, increasing greed has driven the first two points I have made. Have you noticed that we no longer have "accidents" in our culture? Someone has to pay for any injury, minor, major, provable or not. Greed. Trading increasingly meaningless "securities" for vast sums of money. Greed. Buying huge houses that are unaffordable except by a specially designed mortgage allowing one to "buy" a home he/she cannot truly afford? Greed. Mega-churches, mega-TV ministries and anything else deserving the "mega" title while at the same time calling itself a "ministry?" Greed (mostly). NB: there are large ministries that live the Gospel they proclaim, but they are increasingly few in number. Bottom line? We all want MORE. Even Christians want MORE blessing, MORE ease of living, MORE guarantees, and MORE things in church taught and done the way THEY want it, rather than the way Scripture teaches it.
So what do we do? Economically, all we can do is hope that the governments will allow markets, whether they are real estate or financial markets, find a natural "bottom." Only by finding a true bottom, or foundation, can we ever hope to rebuild markets with any sort of realism. Let it all fall down, because in the long run that provides more stability. Another thing we can do is that when we enter the next inflationary cycle, and we will, we need to absolutely freeze government spending at a set dollar value, and let inflation eat up our indebtedness to ourselves and to other nations. It won't take long.
Governmentally, we need to continue to promote and elect representatives that will demand major reforms of our government and the way it does business. We need more efficient government, along the same lines that they are demanding of the auto industry. Our elected reps fear reducing government because government employees are a major voting bloc. Our reps need to understand that if we can get our economy back on track, any government employees losing their jobs will be aborbed by a vital economy, and at true market rates, not inflated government rates.
Finally, we all have to learn to live more austere lives. We must realize that we are constantly pushed, shoved and prodded by the surrounding culture to have more, spend more and show more. As Christians, between this continual cultural influence and increasing government demands on our pocketbooks, we are losing our ability to truly influence culture by caring for the poor and defenseless. The government insists that this is their job, but Scripturally it is not. It is the job of the church and the people who make up the church. Pessimists say that people will never care for their fellow man without the government forcing it. I disagree, and I believe that we need to pursue government like hounds of hell to force them to create tax policy favorable to charitable giving or the provision of goods and services.
Take one area of of constant governmemt intervention and angst, health care. Why can we not create tax policy that rewards all levels of medical personnel and institutions for giving health care to those who cannot afford it? If such tax policy were written, the poor and uninsured would have health care as fine as any the most highly insured have. They would also receive "full" health care dollars. What I mean by "full" is that the dollars of health care given to the less fortunate would not have been laundered through Washington, DC, and the usual 65-80% removed from those dollars to support government distribution of services. Carefully written tax policy, designed to create more opportunities for individuals to assist their neighbors rather than relying solely on the government, will simplify our lives, reduce government, and put more actual dollars toward the problems addressed. Will hundreds of thousands of government employees lose their jobs? Yes. But we will be in a better place to care for them as they retrain and reenter the work force.
We Christians have lost our savor, our "saltiness" if you will, by continuing to create "Christian" versions of the culture rather than being counter-cultural. We have become fat and lazy, caring for our families and our own places of worship, rather than caring for the entire culture. We have fiddled as the culture burned, all along excusing ourselves by saying that we need to speak "to" the culture, which simply becomes "accomodating" the culture within our very churches and families. We must stop formulating "Christian" versions of everything the surrounding culture is doing wrong, and seeking to baptize sin by calling it "Christian." As a very wise lady said to me one time, "I am always wary when someone uses 'Christian' as an adjective."
Christians, examine yourselves. Examine your personal practices. Band together with other Christians in parishes or other communities and begin the change now. It's not too late. Now may be the best time we have had in 30 years to influence the culutre, by the gracious hand of our sovereign God alone. Reach out to the marginalized. Take them in and love them, whether they look, act or smell like you. Demand that government get out of our way as we help rebuild this broken culture. The concept of "parish," the gathering of covenant believers committed to Christ, to one another and to the surrounding community, is the place to start. Demand of your church that they act in accordance with Scripture and with the concept of "parish" in mind constantly. Above all, pray that Christians across the nation and the world will act in agreement and in accordance with the Word of God.
"What's wrong with human law?
Human law... has serious problems. If man is the originator of what is right, equitable and proper, his decisions will always be clouded by self-interest. I know myself well enough to know that I am self-centered, and, left to my own devices, what I think is right will always reflect that fact. Special interest groups constantly lobby politicians to promote their agendas and to advance their causes. As the populace discovers that they can elect political candidates who will buy their votes by giving them handouts in the form of government entitlements, the tax burden on the productive citizens will grow. Laws that originate in the fallen mind of man, like the progressive income tax and other wealth redistribution schemes, are enacted to rob legally those who are America's producers. With human law as a basis for their legislation, our lawmakers will invariably lead us down the path to socialism."
- Robert Andrews, THE FAMILY, 1995
Posted by: Marty Smith | February 02, 2009 at 10:10 PM