I am a Christian and I wish everyone was, but there is way too much non-Christian behavior going on in America to call it a Christian nation. From our government to our businesses, schools, entertainment, consumerism, drug and alcohol addiction, divorce rate, racism, classism, violence, and me-first individualism, this country’s behavior is the opposite of what Jesus taught.
Would a Christian nation vote for policies that increase the numbers of homeless and unemployed and mentally ill people? Would it put stocks and profits above human life and dignity? Would it fail to protect children from abuse and predators? Would it allow the poor to be evicted from their homes with nowhere to go, permit inferior schools in poor neighborhoods, and sexualize children? Would a Christian nation put earning money above obeying and trusting in God? We should not be surprised when unbelievers do these things, but Christians should be doing everything they can to do the right thing.
Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, who was the incarnation of God and came to save us from sin and hell. Jesus taught that we should love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. He also taught his followers some very counter-cultural ideas, such as loving your enemy and doing good to them and helping the poor and not oppressing the workers.
Jesus told the crowds that it was not their job to judge others or to seek revenge. He said that the right thing is to forgive those who wrong you and pray for them. He said that all people are equal in God’s eyes. He said to be filled with the Holy Spirit, not alcohol. Jesus taught that we should store up treasures in heaven and not worry about what we will eat or wear because our Father in heaven knows we need those things.
Jesus was talking about trusting God, a real God who created everything, not just a name on our money. Not trusting God is sin. Idolatry is loving and lusting after the things of this world, rather than loving God.
Jesus brought a message of hope for those who will put their faith in God, not money. These ideas went against the culture then and now.
Yes, there are a lot of Christians in America, but we are not living by Jesus’ example. We need to change that by how we live our individual lives in our communities, not by displaying hypocritical “Ten Commandments” and “In God We Trust” plaques, reciting hollow prayers, or fighting legal battles over Christmas plays. We need to let America see how Jesus has changed us by living changed lives.
So if we want America to become a Christian nation, let’s start by acting like Christ. Love God and love people.
The following video blames hypocrisy on liberals, but I would be willing to bet that a good number of people he mentions in this video call themselves Christians. The problem of hypocrisy is not limited to one party. I think we can see in the video that the real problem is a spiritual one.
The next video is just one example of a low-income mobile home park being bought by investors who then fix it up and raise the rent so high that some of the people will become homeless in a state that is claiming to be trying to find housing for homeless people. Why not just let the poor stay in the homes they already have?
Blue Skies and Green Pastures 
Oh yes, a big amen to this post! Good videos, too. I laughed about Texas being more progressive than Washington when it comes to taxes. That is so true.
Yes, it is true that Jesus said not to judge, but with the caveat that the measure we use for judging would be used on us; i.e., it is all right to make judgements as long as you realize you will be held to the standard you establish. After saying “Judge not…” in Matthew 7:1, He goes on to say in verse 6, “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”
So we must use “judgement” to identify which are dogs or pigs, but not to condemn. As you hint at, THAT is excusively God’s decision.
Yes, certainly, our responsibility is to show love to our neighbor (see The Good Samaritan in Luke 10), but this is not a political activity or protest. It is the personal ‘agape’ love that calls on us to be involved with the people around us, even the difficult ones, and show them that they are loved, even if we disagree with what they do.
Markedly, my blog today is about martyrdom, being willing to die for the sake of my faith in Jesus. A friend noted to me that many claim to be willing to die for Him, but how many of us are willing to LIVE for Him; allow the Holy Ghost to imbue us with His fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”?
❤️& 🙏, c.a.
Your friend is wise. And I was thinking how addiction is at the root of so much homelessness and misery . They need Jesus, but they have to want Him.
Einstein’s theories of space and time compared to Niels Bohr’s innovations of a quantum particle atomic uncertainty principle. Now contrast this with the classic dispute between the viewpoints which perceives the Bible as a fixed history book vs. the idea of prophetic mussar, that mussar applies equally to all generations. Prophesy as mussar defines prophetic physics!
Jewish avoda zarah during the Middle Ages
The distinction between the Book of Commandments, published by the earliest Reshonim scholars to how modern scholarship understands Torah precedents, which establish Torah Common Law. The Books of Torah commandments made by Jewish scholars after Rav Ashi and Rav Ravina sealed the Talmud, beginning with a code published by Rabbi Saadia Gaon, and further developed by the B’hag and followed by the Rambam’s code of the commandments impacted and shaped lesser rabbinic authorities something like a ירידות הדורות “domino effect”.
Rabbi Saadia Gaon organized his theory of commandments something like the concentric cone made by water going down a tub drain. His theory prioritized the 10 commandments as the Av commandments. All other Torah commandments function as toldot/off spring\ commandments to the 10 commandments of Sinai.
The difficulty with this legal theory, the Talmud teaches that Israel in hysteria and panic following the revelation of the opening first two revelation Commandments at Sinai, that our forefathers thereafter, in fear of their lives, demanded from Moshe that he make aliya upon Sinai and receive the rest of the Torah.
Another apparent flaw in this early Gaonic commandment Biblical codification, the failure to identify T’NaCH prophesy “Commandments” as mussar. Mussar, by definition does not exist as some ossified or petrified fossils, turned unto stone box thinking or pigeon-holed classifications. The Written Torah like the Talmud exists, at least to some Talmudic and Reshonim opinions argue that both exist as highly edited texts. A dispute within the Talmud itself, concerning the authorship of the concluding verses of the Book of דברים\משנה תורה. It appears to me that Rabbi Yechuda Ha’Nasi favours the opinion that Moshe did not write the Book of דברים, but rather taught this Book baal peh/orally to Israel. That Rabbi Yechuda Ha’Nasi based his common law codification, the Mishneh, upon the Oral Torah משנה תורה Book דברים.
The later assimilated Books of Commandments codifications, published in the early Middle Ages, they all fundamentally erred. Their failure to grasp, that all T’NaCH prophets command mussar. That the vision of T’NaCH prophesy applies equally, across the board, to all generations of Israel. The division of the Talmud into two main branches: Halacha & Aggadita supports this thesis. That the sages both Tannaim and Amoraim viewed the T’NaCH prophets as teachers of mussar aggadita. Rather than physical historical predictions of future events, as the New Testament claims.
The rabbis of the early Middle Ages, like as do all g’lut generations of exiled Jewish refugee populations, who to the present-day dwell among foreign cultures and customs. That all generations of g’lut Jewry, by definition, struggle with foreign assimilation. Specifically, the assimilation wherein Goyim scholars view the T’NaCH Books as historical history rather than aggadic mussar. The New Testament promotes the narrative of a physical virgin birth Jesus, as opposed to an imaginary man mussar about a messiah.
The church views as utter heresy the idea that the Jesus gospel stories, restricted to only tell a glorified tale of a mystic mythical, fictional character. Such a possibility shatters the church ethical containment force, established early on, based upon their classic Creeds, Doctrines, and Dogmatism.
The early assimilated rabbinic authorities, influenced by how the church organized its ethical containment force religion, the power exerted by these foreign influences, they equally persuaded the Reshonim rabbis to write their rigid books of statute law Torah commandments. This statute law perversion divided the תרי”ג Commandments into a positive/negative statute code of Torah commandments.
All the later Reshon Books of Commandments, such as the ספר החינוך or how the Smag, a pro-Rambam Baali Tosafot scholar who attempted to organize Talmudic halachot around the order of the Rambam’s book of commandments. Both latter examples, highly influenced by the Rambam’s sefer ha’mitzvot, they failed to consider how aggadita interprets the T’NaCH as mussar. This tremendous error aroused the late 19th Century mussar movement lead by rabbi Israel Salanter.
Most essentially that mussar serves as the common denominator which connects the Torah commandments together with all the Books of the NaCH prophets! That mussar likewise merges together with the narrative stories of Talmudic aggadah and later Midrashic sources of scholarship as a unified whole mussar instruction. That mussar simply does not compare to a rigid shaped ice-cube tray, as expressed through Roman statute law.
This channeling of the Torah into rigid religious frames of reference, it appears to me, introduced: comparable to the error made by king Shlomo, and his decision to build a catholic like cathedral Temple. This gross error, it ignored the direct mussar by which the prophet Natan instructed king David not to build a house of Cedar. Shlomo, none the less chose to build the Temple rather than establish Federal Sanhedrin lateral common law courts across the States/Tribes of the Republic; the basis by which to rule the Republic through judicial justice as the Temple commanded by king David.
This decision triggered a ירידות הדורות domino effect, as seen by Ezra’s efforts to build a Temple, based upon the visions of Ezekiel.
Both this and that, they triggered a tremendous error, a ירידת הדורות upon the following generations, and most especially upon g’lut Jewry. The codification of the Torah into frozen brittle commandments effectively collapsed the vision of משנה תורה common law precedents! The latter makes a fundamental distinction between Torah precedents and Torah Common Law. All the commentaries made upon the classic halachic codifications learn by statute law rather than common law which learns the halachot of the Gemara as precedents to understand the k’vanna of a given Mishna.
The writings of the New Testament apostle Paul, its impact compares to the meteor that struck the Earth and caused the dinosaurs total extinction! Paul, as a self declared agent of God, he preached to the Goyim – the freedom of Goyim from under “the Law”. Paul qualifies as an anarchist revolutionary.
His religious rhetoric propaganda conveniently failed to validate the day and night distinction which separates Jewish Common Law from Roman Statute Law! All the later commentaries, as just previously mentioned above, written upon the halachic Reshon codifications, these assimilated rabbis, they too failed to make this distinct about absolutely fundamental separation between shabbat and chol … common law from statute law.
The early Middle Ages Books of Torah commandments prioritizes Commandments over Torah Oral Torah Book of דברים precedents. Therein they assimilate to the error viewpoint which perverts Torah commandments into Statute Laws. Based upon the assumption that Torah Commandments stand upon their own legs, totally independent from Oral Torah common law.
This error fails to learn Oral Torah legal precedents, created with a purpose to compare Oral Torah Book of דברים middot precedent to Written Torah sugiot, based upon shared פרדס middot – as taught through the kabbalah of Rabbi Akiva, with the intention to learn prophetic mussar interpretations of the k’vanna of legal Common Law halachot!
Assimilation to Goyim cultures and customs, Jewish rabbinic authorities erred and perverted the Torah into a Plato/Aristotle logic & statute law avoda zarah; a direct violation of the 2nd Sinai commandment. The Rambam, for example, failed to discern that monotheism violates the 2nd Sinai Commandment. He erroneously thought that praying to Allah did not violate the 1st Sinai commandment! As such his avoda zarah error duplicated Aaron’s translation of the Name of HaShem unto אלהים – the sin of the Golden Calf. Herein explains the Jewish g’lut for 2000+ years as a theory of history. A new theory of Mankind, based upon the realities of g’lut.
Dan Beliveau agothelordsroom.org writes: It appears that in essence your saying the Gentile written Bible is a lie. This is the 2nd time you have posted this. The difference is this time I’m leaving it up. I want people to see your view. Next time comment in plain English or not at all.
Hi Dan wrote in English. (A reference to: Jewish avoda zarah during the Middle Ages). The T’NaCH, an abreviation for Torah, Prophets and Holy Writings, the 3-divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures which the church mislabels as ‘old testament’. Yes in point of fact, do refer to the Xtian bible as totally corrupt. First: It duplicates the sin of the Golden Calf by translating the 1st Commandment Name, not a word, into other words, such as Lord for example.
It has so many errors of translations – across the board in all biblical translations. ברית, transliterated as brit, does not mean covenant. The first word of the Torah contains the words ברית אש. Transliterated to: brit fire. Brit, the Torah defines as alliance NOT covenant.
To cut a Torah “alliance” requires swearing a Torah oath. The NT and all old testament Xtian translations never bring the Name as found in the revelation of the Torah 1st Sinai commandment.
In the Creation story this Spirit Name – breathed into Adam making him a living man. This Spirit Name – not a word. Aaron the brother of Moshe, erred at the Golden Calf when he translated this Spirit Name into a word אלהים/Gods.
The sin of the Golden Calf serves as the basis by which the Torah defines avoda zarah. Avoda zarah/strange worship\ does not translate into “idolatry”. Why? The 2nd Sinai commandment, the negative commandment not to worship other Gods, obviously rejects the Muslim error known as Monotheism.
The plagues of Egypt judged the Gods of Egypt. The brit sworn at Gilgal in the days of the prophet Jehoshua, prior to the beginning of the wars by which Israel conquered the lands of Canaan. This Gilgal brit, recorded through the mitzva of Rashi order of tefillen (the 2 black boxes Jews strap upon our bodies), [Rashi a rabbi of the Middle Ages famous for writing commentaries upon the Torah, Talmud, and Midrashim], Jehoshua cut a sworn oath brit with the 1st Sinai commandment Name, that just as this Name warred against the Gods of Egypt, so too this Name would war against the Gods of Canaan.
This concept of calling upon this Name to precede acts of physical war, a reference found in the Song of Moshe which recounts the destruction of Par’o’s Army and chariots in the Sea of Reeds. This reference, found in the Book of Sh’mot, translated as Exodus in Xtian bible mistranslations, (Sh’mot: plural for Names) refers to the Spirit Name by the metaphor: Eish HaMilchamah. Meaning – “Man of War”. At Horev, following the Golden Calf, a set of pronouns revealed to Moshe which serve like unto the Spirit Name. This revelation of pronouns known as the revelation of the 13 tohor middot.
Avoda Zarah, the 2nd Sinai commandment, the Torah common law legal system learns by means of the Torah precedents located in the 5th Book of the Torah(/Oral Torah\משנה תורה) which means repetition of the Law. The Torah common law legal system employs mitzvot precedents, found in the 5th Book of the Torah, precedents to understand and interpret other sections of the Written Torah located in the other 4 Books of the Written Torah.
If you examine the closing of the Book of דברים, mistranslated unto Deuteronomy, this Book refers to Moshe in the 3rd person, Moshe did not write this closing Torah, at least to some opinions. The Talmud teaches that Moshe delivered over, this closing Book of the Torah “Baal Peh”. The translation of Baal Peh – Orally. Hence the term Torah sh’baal peh or Oral Torah. The church throughout its history denies the Oral Torah.
The confusion of the church authorities stems from the משנה/Mishna written by rabbi Yechuda Ha’Nassi, the last chief justice of the Great Sanhedrin court. His work, the Mishna, Jewish scholars refer to as the codification of the Oral Torah.
This obvious over implication of the 5th Book of Torah common law, rabbi Yechuda’s Mishna reflected through its Case/Rule organization of Great Sanhedrin judicial rulings written and codified prior to the Roman expulsion of the Jewish people from Judea. Rabbi’s Mishna written before & after three crushed Jewish revolts against Rome. The last of which occurred in Alexandria Egypt in 332. As a point of reference, the famous Xtian Nicene Council occurred in 325!
The Apostle Paul famously declares that the Goyim are not under the law. Paul a student of Rabban Gamliel, the previous Nassi of the Great Sanhedrin prior to Rabbi Yechuda. Paul could not have learned Torah judicial law totally oblivious that this legal system based itself upon common law principles of learning law by means of precedents.
Yet the Xtian writings of Paul obscures this most obvious distinction which separates Jewish common law from Roman statute law. Why did Paul consciously choose to blur the distinction between two completely different legal systems? (Something like the difference between statute law practiced in Germany and France contrasted by British common law.) This causes many Jews, me included, to conclude that Paul functioned as a concealed agent provocateur, sent by Rabban Gamliel to promote Civil War in Rome, as Yechuda Maccabee did by swearing alliance to a pretender King of the Syrian Greek empire in the war known as Hannukah, most recently remembered and celebrated.
When Jews light the Hannukah lights, we dedicate to only interpret the Written Torah by total reliance upon Oral Torah legal precedents. This Oral Torah logic, totally different than the logic system employed by the Syrian Greek empire. The latter stood upon the logic format developed by the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. The Jewish revolt against the Syrian Greek empire rejected the logic format of the ancient Greeks as a tool to interpret the Torah.
Another fundamental lie of the Xtian bible, the perversion of tohor and tumah mistranslated as clean and unclean. The term ‘chosen people’/’first born son’ refers to Israel as a ‘nation of priests’.
After the Golden Calf avoda zara, (which the Oral Torah defines as assimilation to pursue after and embrace how Goyim worship their Gods; which extends to copying and embracing the cultures and customs practiced by Goyim societies and/or intermarriage), the Tribe of Levi would supplant and replace the first-born sons of Israel as Cohenim, translated as priests. Hence this term chosen first-born, has much broader implications. The Talmud as a precedent, teaches that tefillah stands in the stead of korbanot. Often roughly translated as “Prayer stands in the place of sacrifices”. Tefillah dedicates tohor middot as revealed to Moshe at Horev following the golden calf. The description of the Name passing before Moshe and declaring a 13 set of attributes which Jews call middot.
Obviously, a person can hardly dedicate a tohor middah, if that person cannot distinctly discern and separate one tohor middah from the other tohor middot!
The Torah has 54 weekly portion divisions call Parshiot. The Sinai Name employs 4 letters. 4 X 13 = 52. The two Crowns of the Torah, the 2 Parshiot which teach the blessing/curse responsibility for accepting the oath brit Torah faith.
Jewish tefillah, also known as the Amidah, translated as standing prayer. To swear a Torah oath requires that a person stands before a Sefer Torah. Ideally Jews dedicate their tefillot tohor middot while standing before a Sefer Torah in a synagogue. Hence the common mistranslation of tefillah into the English word prayer, totally misses the intent of the action verb tefillah – the dedication of tohor “spirits” which influence how a Jew behaves with his fellow bnai brit people in the future.
The false biblical corruption of the key terms tohor and tumah as clean and unclean totally corrupts and perverts the dedication of the soul to defined tohor middot as opposed to and contrasted by tumah middot of future born behavior.
Tefillah, a matter of the heart. Rabbi Yechuda Ha’Nasi teaches the Oral Torah precedent of “you shall love the Name, with all your heart etc”, located in the 5th Book or Oral Torah. The Hebrew misspells heart as לבב. Heart correctly spelled לב. Rabbi Yechuda introduced a unique interpretation: that service to the Name לשמה, requires the dedication of both tohor and tumah middot which wrestle within the heart, something like as did Esau & Yaacov in Rivka’s womb.
The struggle between tohor and tumah middot defines all prophetic mussar. Mussar understood as a rebuke. The sages of the Talmud teach, that they lacked the wisdom to teach mussar!
Why? Any person can criticize another. But it takes special wisdom to plant mussar seeds within the heart of others and have those “seeds” spout as an original idea from within the person so rebuked by prophetic mussar! The church abomination failed to grasp such subtle distinctions; hence it defined the prophesy of T’NaCH prophets as predictions of the future! JeZeus fulfilled this or that biblical prophecy etc. This corruption totally perverts, on the order of homosexuality, prophetic mussar. So yes, most definitely say that like Santa Clause, “the Gentile written Bible is a lie”.
Stop the insanity!
It has always fascinated me how different Christian communities have different beliefs on this. Coming from a Catholic background, Christianity is not only an identity, but an activity. The Catholic Church has a strong emphasis not only on faith (considering yourself a Christian) but on good works (putting the teachings of Christ into actual practice). It is absolutely central to the church that members volunteer with various ministries, participate in almsgiving, and back their belief up with their time and treasure. The government is a fleeting thing that has always been a poor substitute for Christian charity.
But for the “salvation by faith alone” crowd, religion becomes entirely about having the proper emotions. Christianity doesn’t have any personal obligations attached except acknowledging the metaphysical reality of God. Beyond that, it’s about showing up and rocking out to the band. Obsessing over the Christian identity of the country is about collecting members for the club. There’s no mystery to how this sort of behavior can easily be replaced by thought leaders on the internet – just give the kids some new personality to emote over. This is also why almost every schism in the church has been over sexual morality. Once you stop caring about good works, the church becomes about whatever pleases you.
There are real consequences to talking about God like He’s your BFF not your Lord. Your BFF is your peer, incapable of making real demands on your behavior. Your Lord is here to change you, not please you. Folks get frustrated when they see swaths of society that are completely unwilling to put their money where their mouth is, but that behavior is part of the theological architecture of their religion. It’s like they think baptism is some kind of magic and throw out the rest of the New Testament where we are commanded to live and think a certain way. They were screwing around when the teacher was explaining the assignment.
Good points. I do believe in salvation by faith alone, but I also believe that faith without works is dead. So if you have faith, you will have at least some proof of it by good works. This is one reason I joined the Methodist church who are very busy helping in the community and not just within their own church family. Being tolerant of behavior contrary to the teachings of Jesus and the entire Bible is not good works. The main problem is the lack of proper teaching of the whole Bible and much of the “American church” having zero expectations of it’s members to live out their faith. A terrible lack of discipleship.
See, I don’t understand why folks quote James 2 to back up salvation by faith alone. The message of the chapter is that salvation is gained by keeping the whole law. “14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
What do folks think “faith without works is dead” even means? It means if you are not willing to act like a Christian, you don’t actually believe as a matter of fact. That kind of faith, according to Scripture, is “useless.” There’s not some hierarchy of faith, like faith without works is okay but faith with works is better. You either accept the whole law or you don’t. You either make an effort to live according to the whole law or you don’t. What do people think Hell is for? It’s to punish sin. And what is sin? It is the activity living separately from God’s law.
Works are the results of true faith . But we aren’t saved by works. We are saved by Jesus’s atonement on the cross .
No one disputes that Christ died for the forgiveness of sins. The question is whether a person can be genuinely faithful and simultaneously continue to live in contradiction of God’s law willfully. Not to be forgiven for Original Sin, but to sin because they assume they are forgiven. To live comfortable with regret, even romanticize it as evidence of their humanity. If you want a fun thing to read about, research Pascal’s Wager.
I say this, because I think Pascal’s Wager is the current state of religion in America generally (the subject of your post).
I’ll look it up .
So you’re saying it’s mostly false conversions? It’s easy to believe in God when you’re not dependent on Him or actually “losing your life” to gain it. Paul tried to tell us to “count it all joy” when we suffer, but many preachers have taught that something is wrong if you aren’t living your best life now.
[…] unrelated bloggers that offer some good food for thought along similar lines. Blue Skies writes, “Please Don’t Call America a Christian Nation,” and Night Wind writes, “Godless Capitalism is No Solution Either” and “Godless […]
Zoning laws are common across the country. When I lived in Texas in the 80’s they did not have them. Probably still don’t. I first ran into zoning laws when I lived in Northern Virginia. The urban sprawl in that area is remarkable. Commutes are long because of the large areas that are zoned for 5 and t0 acre lots.
What is the real driver for zoning in favor of single-family homes. Single-family home pay more in taxes than they cost in services. If you are on the Board of County Supervisors, that is a hard fact to ignore.
Counties also compete with each other. Business development is a high priority. So is keeping the rate of housing development down. So, there is not a whole lot of incentive to have low-income housing.
Note also the people featured in your films. The problem of affordable housing is being exacerbated by single moms and illegal immigrants.
Our schools undermine the values of our children, encouraging sex outside marriage.
Illegal immigration hurts our low-income citizen in two ways: increased competition both for jobs and housing.
That’s all true. But those single moms and illegals are people in need of shelter . What’s the right thing to do from a Christian perspective? Should profit be the only consideration?
Put yourself in the shoes of a businessman educated at one of America’s elite secular universities, You have been taught that success is measured by how much money you make.
Put yourself in the shoes of a stockholder. A company is not worthy of your investment unless it is making money.
Put yourself in the shoes of a homeowner. If the county they live in changes its zoning laws, their housing values will go down, and their taxes will go up,
Your question doesn’t make sense to company CEOs, stockholders, or homeowners. There isn’t much they can do. If it becomes a charity, the CEO’s company won’t survive, and raising the rentals does provide better housing for the people who can afford it. Stockholders don’t “invest” in charities to make money. They may give money to a charity, but they don’t invest in a charity. Only lying politicians do that. A homeowner isn’t going to vote to destroy his neighborhood, not if he or she knows any better. Have you seen what happens to a suburban neighborhood when a bunch of illegal aliens and poor people move in? The neighborhood quickly goes downhill, destroyed by a hairbrained political decision.
In fact, we have plenty of examples of guilt-ridden Democrats trying implement their hairbrained social policies and making a mess of it. Look at that open border and all the drugs and human trafficking.
Guilt is not a solution. We have to address the underlying problems at the appropriate level of government. Zoning laws and the battle for school choice are statewide, not local issues. Illegal immigration is a national problem.
My point was to look at it from how individuals who profess to be Christians should live in this world according to the teachings of Jesus. If the businessman, stockholder and homeowners are Christians, they are accountable to God. So the question is what is the RIGHT thing to do. If half or so of Americans claim to believe in God, as they do, then they should be able to agree on how to help the single moms, illegals, drug addicts, etc without enabling them or encouraging dependency. But there is always an underlying concern about money that gets in the way. I’m not saying it’s easy to help those people.
Money equates to survival. It is all very well to criticize people for not giving money away, but it makes more sense to fix broken policies.
We have an elite class that is running our country into the ground. Their policies are immoral, but they peddle them as virtuous because they are giving money away, other people’s money. Christians don’t give away other people’s money. The Bible defines charity as a personal act, not government charity.
Are you a Christian, Tom? If you are then you know that God is our ultimate provider. My post is about 1) individual Christians doing good to others like Jesus taught, and 2)Christian business and political leaders using their power and authority to help others, not just make themselves more rich and powerful.
Work should be one of the ways we worship. We should serve our customers as best we can within the constraints we cannot change.
Think again about that trailer park that company acquired so they could supposedly raise the rent. Consider the alternatives:
1. The city had acquired the property because of crime and safety issues. If the new owner did not raise the rents and encouraged the existing tenants to stay, the crime and safety issues would probably return, the new owner would have trouble funding maintenance, profits would suffer, and the city would seize the property again.
2. The new owner could raise rents. Wealthier tenants would be less tolerant of crime and safety issues. Maintenance could be funded. Profits would be realized. The new tenants would have affordable housing.
Option 2 works for some people. Options 1 doesn’t work because the existing tenants actually need charity.
To a large extent the cost of rentals is excessive because of the government. That is a problem for government to solve, not the new owner of the trailer park.
Christian charity is always required, but so are businessmen trying to make an honest profit. If some people cannot afford what a business is selling at the price set by the market, it does not serve any useful purpose for that business to cut its price. Because they don’t allow business to respond to the needs of those who afford to pay, price controls don’t work. But price controls are what you seem to want. See https://citizentom.com/2022/09/12/why-is-inflation-a-tax-part-4/.
That said, do I like what the new owner of that trailer park appears to be doing? Not particularly, but they are not making their profits off of widows and orphans. They are just making an obvious fact more obvious. The cost of housing is extremely high because of land use laws.
Tom: If you don’t mind my jumping in here—I basically agree with your premises that we also have a Christian duty to defend our Property Rights and the Right to Free Trade. The problem though is that we now have amoral government defending amoral financial interests and they’re neither helping the poor nor protecting property or Free Enterprise. When you don’t have a government protecting property and trade, you get financial and economic combines which become de facto governments—actually even worse because they aren’t subject to elections or Constitutional restraints.
I know of American neighborhoods that were once good places to live; the City governments, backed by fake activists hired by special interests, flooded these places with poor and undesirables—the very thing you described happened: property values plummeted, crime went up. Then lo and behold, land-sharks like Honeywell and Berkshire-Hathaway swooped in, bought the neighborhoods up at bargain prices, hired private security and built new developments. That’s hardly a Christian thing to do either. The same thing happened during the Scamdemic when they (intentionally) drove down small farmers so that the Gates Foundation and other predators could grab the land cheap and sell us produce at now something like 12% inflation while they get government subsidies.
The point I’m making is that both the lawmakers and the money-makers need to be held to some kind of standard like “What is the right thing to do” as opposed to what the most politically expedient or the most cost-effective thing to do is.
Thanks for saying it better than I did, Night Wind. I believe we can still have free markets while not being controlled by a “screw you, I got mine” mentality.
I remember a great example of what you’re speaking of happened IIRC in 2016; it was sometime late in Obama’s term. There was a massive hurricane that hit part of North Korea. It was about this time of year and thousands were homeless with no resources and North Korean winters are notoriously terrible. President Kim sent the Army to the area with instructions to set up kitchens and provide blankets and medical care and to work around the clock constructing new housing units. Russia donated several months’ worth of natural gas and sent engineers to install heating units in the new buildings and China sent lumber and construction materials. It was finished before winter really hit.
But what did ‘Christian’ America do? We had editorials saying that now was the time to strike for ‘regime change.’ Obama responded with sanctions, and even sent nuclear-armed bombers to the North Korean border—which put the DPRK Army on High Alert and stretched their resources considerably. It ended up backfiring anyway, because Kim’s popularity soared for meeting the crisis and backing down the US at the same time. But it was a real disgrace that we had Communists behaving more like Christians than our people were doing.
For all have fallen short of the Glory of God. We are not perfect but there are some of us who try to do the right thing… some of us who dream of just being able to help people abundantly but struggle to find the means to do so in the ways they feel led. I have been trying to raise money for volunteer work for four years now and I am still sitting at zero. I haven’t given up…I know I will get there one day!!
[…] to preach the gospel of Christ and to speak the mystery of Christ.” PK Adams challenges us to rethink our outlook as Christians and see that much of this world needs the Word for more conversion to the faith rather than just a […]
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You can’t serve two masters. Choose God or money. And if you don’t you will hate One while you love the other… and if you choose God, the little things like stockholders are not your real problem.