Over the past several weeks the daily mass readings have been from the Old Testament prophets, and the theme has been the downfall of the Israelites when they fell away from God. Over and over again, the prophets warned the people about falling away from God, but to no avail. Amos, Ezekiel, and Hosea all spoke on behalf of God, calling His people back to faithfulness. But despite God’s intervention to rescue the Jews from slavery in Egypt, the Jews repeatedly reverted back to the idolatry of setting up false gods. You’d think they would learn from their own experience. When they were faithful to God and the law He provided to guide them, the Israelites flourished. They conquered their enemies against formidable odds when they were in-sync with God. But when they turned away, when their kings and leaders ignored God’s law, the consequences were devastating. The Israelites were routed by their enemies, their cities and even their temple destroyed, and they ended up in captivity.
For years, when I read these passages, I thought of them as mildly interesting anecdotes about a foolish people in ancient history. Now, however, the message seems more pertinent as much of Western civilization has abandoned their Christian heritage and adopted a secular culture. Not only have European countries increasingly ignored the wisdom of God’s law, they have actively attempted to remove its influence from their culture. The false gods of personal freedom and self-absorption have replaced self-control and respect for life. Self-fulfillment now trumps personal responsibility and socialist governments have stepped up to ensure that everyone has access to health care, even though 80% of illness is caused by lack of self-control, whether in diet, sexual incontinence or drug and alcohol addiction, all of which are not only tolerated, but considered the norm.
Here in America, our government has become intolerant of people exercising their religious belief. People of faith are welcome to practice their religion in church and on Sundays, but are being told that it is unacceptable to live that faith in daily life. Beginning 2014 it will be a violation of federal law to refuse to pay for chemical abortions and sterilization, even though it violates our religious belief. In testifying before Congress on this issue, Archbishop Lori compared this to implementing a law requiring every deli owner to serve pork, even if doing so violated the religious belief of Jewish or Muslim deli owners.
Our nation has abandoned the culture of life and is replacing it with a culture of death. Reminiscent of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, words are now used to mean the exact opposite of what they used to mean. Killing unborn babies is now called “women’s health” despite the fact that half the babies killed are female. Distributing carcinogenic birth control pills is now referred to as “essential preventive services,” and refusing to pay for this is being called a “war on women.”
The consequences of all this are being widely ignored. Countries with falling birth rates are piling up mountains of debt in an effort to continue to fund health care and retirement pay for a burgeoning elderly population by taxing the diminishing working class. Many countries with low birth rates for the last several decades now have debt that is two to three times their annual GDP. Here in the USA our debt is now greater than our GDP and growing rapidly. This same phenomenon has already bankrupted a number of cities, and several state governments are not far behind. Illinois for example has a budget deficit of approximately $42 billion with no earthly idea how to fund all their liabilities. Even a massive tax increase would hardly put a dent in Illinois debt problem.
Our nation, or at least our current government, appears to have turned away from God and from common sense. They continue to promote failed social policy and profligate spending, despite mounting debt, and then have the arrogance ask for re-election to continue exacerbating the mess they’ve created.
In the Old Testament, one of the false gods often mentioned is Baal. I recently learned that this word means “owner” and connotes a sense of personal freedom to do as one pleases because he “owns” things. The same term was applied in some cultures to mean “husband” and the word for wife meant “owned” as in owned by her husband. Despite the obvious implications about male supremacy and female subservience, the kings who set up alters to Baal were intentionally turning away from God and falsely believed that they had no need of God or God’s law because they “owned” their own destiny and they knew what was best for themselves and their people. We know where it got them. The history of civilization is filled with examples of mighty empires that crashed under the weight of their own self-destruction. Immorality often led to a rapid decline in civility and the abandonment of values that supported and promoted families and new life. When a nation begins to kill its unborn children, it is on a death march. When religious belief is no longer tolerated, that nation is losing its moral compass and headed for disaster. The consequences are already showing up in economic distress, in health care outcomes, in crime statistics (consider Chicago’s homicide rate- president Obama’s hometown), in the explosion of emotional and mental health illnesses, in declining academic achievement, in the breakdown of families and in dismal demographic trends.
Perhaps it’s time we turn back to God and His law, and replace our political idols with the Truth as revealed to us by God. The Catholic Bishops are making an admirable attempt to educate Catholics about the consequences of the violation of our First Amendment rights to religious freedom, but we all need to take note of the bigger picture and realize that our culture is in big trouble. We need to return to our Christian roots and instill a culture of life in our nation by electing people who share our moral beliefs in the sanctity of human life and in personal responsibility. We need leaders who will promote family values, not tear them down, and we need a government that respects the constitution, not one that ignores and even attempts to subvert it.
