It does not take a prophet to tell that the tone in America has been becoming more extreme lately. This has been especially true in the media, which has been trying to take the authority to dictate the conversation, not just report on it. Some in the media are so immature or unstable that they see anyone who deviates a little from their position as an extremist, which causes more extreme reactions on the other side. This is creating forces that are pulling on both the left and right wings of our eagle and will soon pull the eagle apart if it is not stopped.
It’s good to see Americans care enough to argue, and I don’t mind seeing Christians doing this either—it’s better than the dead churches where they don’t care enough to argue. Even so, as we mature, we should rise above arguing to sincere dialog. Such dialog is disappearing from our political discourse, which is another sign we are under the judgment of immature leadership. We must stop demonizing others who disagree with us. The mature will be the first to stop this.
People can hold the wrong positions for the right reasons, and people can hold the right view on things but with bad motives, so it’s not just about who has the best motives either. Christians are often polarized the same way as in politics. One of the answers to a more united church is by remembering that the way we treat even the least of the Lord’s people, even those who may have some wrong doctrines or practices, will be considered the way we treated the Lord Himself. We must keep the unity of the Spirit regardless of our other disagreements. As we all grow up into Christ, we will grow closer together, and we will start seeing as He does, which will probably be corrected vision for all of us.
As we discussed earlier, understanding comes from the term “standing under” someone else’s position. I tried this on a friend who was expressing his disbelief at how liberals could think the way that they did in trying to make the government the source of everyone’s needs, especially considering the well-proven incompetence of the government to manage anything well. I asked him to consider how he would think if he had not become a Christian and had faith in God. It took him a few minutes, and then he saw that if he did not have faith in God, there would be no other place to hope in but the government, and he would probably be a liberal too.
Now there are atheists who are conservatives simply on the basis of seeing the incompetence of government management. There are also Christians who are liberals because of their faith, not in spite of it. Many Christian liberals believe they are following the mandates of Christ such as caring for the poor. I appreciate their motives, and though I see the mandate to care for the poor, I don’t see this anywhere as being given to a government, but rather to individuals. When charity becomes institutional instead of a personal expression of love, it becomes demeaning, dehumanizing, and does not lift people up but keeps them down.
Even so, I would agree with liberals that even cold institutional charity is better than letting people starve. The debate is over where the safety net should be. However, mathematics does not lie. If the true liberal agenda is to help the unfortunate, why is it that when liberal politicians have to release their tax records, it is rare to find one who has given more than 1% of their income? It’s not true of all, as some, such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are trying to give away almost their entire fortunes. However, with politicians, it seems that the difference is huge between liberals and conservatives, with conservatives being many times more generous personally. Some people may very well want to be generous, but they just want to do it with our money, not theirs.
It takes a while for most to understand this though, but Americans now are by about a 60% margin. Winston Churchill has been attributed as saying, “If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.” Of course, there are plenty of hypocrites on both sides. This is why we need to go to the math that does not lie.
In recent campaign speeches, President Obama has repeatedly made the statement that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. I think 30% of Americans agree with that. Why? According to The Tax Foundation, 70% of Americans either pay no taxes or pay less in taxes than they get back in benefits from the government. At the same time, the top 5% of earners pay 50% of the income taxes collected. Is this fair? Even though this is being promoted to get more from the rich, we can tax the top earning Americans 100% of their income, and it will not even make a dent in the deficits. What is happening is that a message is being sent that if you work hard in America, and do well, you are going to be penalized for it. Then they wonder why the top American businesses are fleeing to other countries.
This is one way that the Internet is helping to prepare the way for the Lord. You probably have not heard that before, but it’s true. John Huss was supposedly a much better preacher than Luther, and the depth of Huss’ message was substantially greater, but Luther just happened to emerge at the same time as the printing press, which made the dissemination of information multiply, just as the Internet has in our time.
Of course, the Internet is being used for evil too, but so was the printing press. Let’s overcome evil with good and use it for sharing the good news about the coming kingdom. It is a good thing that so much information is now available to so many people, and the lies that are being told to us get so quickly exposed. Let us resolve to be devoted to the truth in all that we do, whether it supports what we want to believe or not. If we are going to follow the Truth, we must love the Truth.