Culture Wars, The Economy and God

As I write, the entire country awaits the outcome of a meeting between Obama, McCain, leaders in Congress, and President Bush on the bailout of some of the greedy financial institutions who have sent this economy into near oblivion while their CEOs walk off with gazillion dollar bonuses. I do not know how it will turn out but there are certain things of which I am very sure. We are reaping what we have sown as a nation. This bailout will likely be successful but short-lived. As a nation we have been fighting a culture war for almost two generations.

The cultural issues have been more than political. They have been moral in nature. As a nation in the past 40 years we have poked fun at "Father Knows Best" and buried the nuclear family. We have aborted millions of babies, ordained homosexuals in the church, married lesbians in California and Massachusetts, emasculated the American male, divorced at a 50% clip (even in the evangelical church), raised an entire generation of latchkey kids whose parents have sold them out for their careers, and turned the church into a faint shadow of what God intended her to be.

In the past 24 hours as I write...

• New home sales have plummeted by nearly 12% with a $35,000 drop in value.
  
• Jobless claims are up, bell weather GE is in trouble, and the fingers are pointing with lightning speed.
  
• Warren Buffet invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and in one day made a profit of $748 million.
  
• Iran's (Biblical Persia) vile president, Ahmadinejad, freely railed against the great harlot America - in free America of all places.
  
• A bomb killed scores of people in Pakistan in a hotel frequented by Westerners.
  
• The Democrats and the Republicans reluctantly sat down together to try to resolve the financial crises while Americans are warned of the coming Great Depression. But they couldn't even put aside partisan politics for a moment in the best interest of the country.
  
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, designed to help poor people buy into the American dream, have all but buried the poor with foreclosures during their drunken sailor mortgage binges.
  
• Kids continue to make "Grey's Anatomy," a morally bankrupt drama, one of the most watched TV programs, as their parents watch the two hour season premiere with them.
  
• Philadelphia police officer Patrick McDonald was shot and killed in the Iraq of the West, the city of brotherly love known as Philadelphia, in another of this city's death spree in their killing fields.
  
• The trailer for the new movie with Bill Maher, "Religulous," an assault on Christianity starring the nut cases who have long embarrassed us, was just released with this statement from the cynic himself:

  "Since starting on Politically Incorrect in 1993, it has been my pleasure over the last decade and a half to make organized religion one of my favorite targets. I often explained to people, 'I don't need to make fun of religion, it makes fun of itself.' And, then I go ahead and make fun of it too, just for laughs. With religious fanatics like George Bush and Osama bin Laden now taking over the world, it seemed to me in recent years that this issue -- this cause of debunking the man behind the curtain -- needed to have a larger, more insistent and focused forum than late night television. I wanted to make a documentary, and I wanted it to be funny. In fact, since there is nothing more ridiculous than the ancient mythological stories that live on as today's religions, this movie would try to be a real knee slapper. Unless, of course, you're religious, then you might not like it."

  I could go on and on. But it would be too depressing. As bad as things are, "you ain't seen nothin' yet! This is but the beginning of sorrows. And what is the response of the church to this coming economic and moral earthquake? We argue the fine points of theology that divide us while people are dying and going to hell. We argue over music styles while Satan laughs at our immaturity. We leave our churches and sinfully challenge the motives of our leaders - men we have rarely supported, never prayed over, and criticized in a thousand ways without ever entering into their struggles and joining them as co-laborers. And we often do these ugly things without giving a dime to support them. And then there are the pastors who abuse their office in horrific ways while at the same time preaching the "gospel" every Sunday. How brazen can we be?

  I believe God is sickened by our immaturity and lack of a Biblical world-view. Meanwhile, the world continues to wait for a message of hope, someone to tell them that all is going to be OK. The Democrats cannot say it. The Republicans cannot say it. And most of the church cannot say it. Why? Because too many believers no longer believe God is sovereign and that He can be trusted. Maybe we are too busy studying our 401k accounts and little time in the Word of God. And yet when it comes right down to it, we will be forced to say and echo with Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we turn? You have the words of life."
  
  

  In His Grip,
  Dr. Chuck Betters