Is Russia becoming more Christian than the USA?

Sunday’s gospel is the familiar parable of the rich man who ignores the plea of the beggar at his gate, only to find himself in eternal torment after death, while the poor man enjoys the delights of heaven.   This lesson is not just about wealth vs. poverty, but about the rich man’s selfishness and refusal to acknowledge the poor man’s humanity and need.  The story points to the utmost importance of leading a moral life here and now, because the decisions we make in this life will have an impact on us for all eternity.  C.S. Lewis once said that the ultimate sin, the greatest disorder in life, is to say that what is good is bad, and what is bad is good.  No doubt there have always been times when this has been the case, and inevitably led to the demise of a nation and even empires.  Sadly, we find ourselves living in such a time.  A large number of people in the world now believe that abortion is good, contraception is bad; sex outside of marriage is good, sexual continence bad (or just moronic); teaching children that marriage is a sacred institution and permanent bond between a man and a woman is considered bad (intolerant, violation of civil rights), while gay marriage and children with two parents of the same sex is held up as good.

There is a certain moral order to life and when we depart from it, things don’t turn out well.  Our great nation was founded on the assumption that a republic of United States, rooted in Christian values and belief in natural law, is superior to a simple democracy.  The very word democracy means “mob rule,” and our founding fathers were very concerned that a majority, untethered from the moral order, would surely destroy themselves.  Such was the case among the people of France after their revolution which ultimately resulted in a dictatorship.  Adherence to the moral order of life encourages and rewards virtue and self-control, while putting constraints on disordered conduct.  These principles have resulted in America’s unprecedented success, precisely because it encouraged population growth, personal and corporate responsibility, and productivity.  For 200 years the family has been the foundation of our society, serving as the incubator of new citizens who would learn virtues, the value of education, and responsibility from their two parents.  Now, 40% of children are born and raised by single moms, many living in poverty.

Perhaps the greatest disorder in our society and worst moral tragedy of our time is the rampant murder of unborn children.  How can a society remain healthy if it destroys its future by taking the lives of its future citizens?  This past week I was amazed to hear Vladimir Putin, of all people, denounce Europe’s departure from its Christian heritage, and warn that declining population and immorality were going to be the downfall of Western culture and civilization.   Russia is spending more than $100 million to rebuild Christian Orthodox Churches, and both Putin and Demitry Medvedeve attend church weekly.  Both have been giving speeches warning that departure from the Christian values that made Europe so prosperous, will be its demise.  Putin and Medvedeve have seen the disastrous consequences of atheism on Russian society.  It has resulted in birth rates so low, their population has declined rapidly and their economy along with it; alcoholism, depression, and suicide have risen dramatically; longevity has dropped significantly, national productivity has plummeted, and their economy now depends almost entirely on the export of natural resources, rather than the product of labor and creativity.  In response, they are attempting to re-Christianize Russia.  They even have a national holiday now to celebrate when Russia first became a Christian nation in 988 AD, and they teach religion in their public schools.

Meanwhile, back in the States, we are forcing citizens and corporations, even those owned by religious orders, to violate their personal religious beliefs.  We hold up Planned Parenthood to be a great good for our nation, completely disregarding the humanity of the unborn victims of abortion (like the rich man in the parable).  Those opposed to abortion are increasingly held out to be intolerant, and many have been sued under the racketeering laws for their opposition to abortion.  I recently posted a link to an anti-abortion site on Facebook and got some interesting comments from my extended family on the West coast.  One nephew sent me a chart from  http://www.factcheck.org/2011/04/planned-parenthood/ siting the fact that less than 5% of Planned Parenthood’s services are for abortion.  The pie chart depicted abortion as only a miniscule part of PP’s mission.  This misleading chart ignores the fact than over 90% of PP’s revenue is spent on abortion, and 10% of that annual revenue comes from the government.  Although half the people in America, along with our federal government, believe Planned Parenthood is good, here’s why I disagree, and object to funding Planned Parenthood with our tax dollars:

1.      There is videotape documentation that PP knowingly performs abortion on women imprisoned in sex-trafficking, enabling their captors to retain control over them; and PP is willing to abort children of women impregnated from statutory rape so that they can continue in their abusive relationships, inflicting great pain on women.

2.      PP lobbies against laws protecting the safety of women in their abortion facilities.  It lobbies against laws requiring inspections of abortuaries to ensure they are clean and equipment is sterilized; against laws requiring abortion clinics to have ambulance access, and against laws requiring physicians to maintain hospital privileges.

3.      PP lobbies against all laws that provide information to women, to allow them to make informed decisions; against sonograms so women can see their unborn babies; and against laws requiring parental consent for minors to have abortions.

4.      PP denies the fact that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer and premature birth in future pregnancies, and denies the physical and emotional risks associated with abortion, all of which has been demonstrated in numerous clinical and scientific studies.

Sunday’s first reading from the book of Amos warns against complacency, the second reading from Paul’s letter to Timothy encourages us to, “pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love and patience…” and the gospel parable warns what may happen if we ignore the humanity of others, including the most vulnerable among us.  Our society is becoming more and more disordered.  It’s up to us as Christians to know the facts, and to fight for the moral good, lest we fall victim to our own complacency and the mistaken notions of what is good and what is bad for the future of our nation and our progeny.

Truthfulness and Debunking a few Myths

Sunday’s scripture readings are all about honesty, truthfulness, and trust.  The prophet Amos warns that God knows when we cheat others and take advantage of them.  In the gospel Jesus notes that:

“The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones;
and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones.
If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?
No servant can serve two masters.  He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and mammon.”

All of us have on occasion been less than completely honest, either overtly, or by omission.  We rationalize such behavior as trivial and of little or no consequence, or perhaps in service of some greater good.  I used to think nothing of bringing home small office supplies, rationalizing that on occasion I worked from home, but in reality, the pens, pencils and paper were used mostly for non-work related activity.  The more I took home, the more I felt entitled to things that caught my fancy, until at some point I realized that these small indiscretions were softening my moral thinking and leading to more egregious sins.

Today’s second reading from Paul encourages us to pray, “…for kings and all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life.”  Those in authority have a duty to seek the common good and I’m sure than in most cases, their intentions are good, even if misguided.  But there are times when all of us attempt to shape opinion by ignoring or omitting information, in an effort to make the case for our personal worldview.  This has all too often been the case when people try to shape history to fit their worldview.  Take the case of Charles Darwin.  The common understanding of Darwin is that he discovered evolution and demonstrated once and for all that human life evolved quite by chance from a long series of random events.  However, the reality is that the concept of evolution dates back to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (340 – 270 BC) and his later Roman disciple Lucretius, who posited that all matter was composed of very small particles (atoms) that had been inexistence forever.  They believed that all living things were the result of the random association of material atomic particles.  The implication of this belief was that there are no gods and human life is entirely materialistic, even to the point that there is no such thing as a human soul or spiritual reality.  Epicureans believed in atheism and hedonism, and they persisted for centuries. 

Later European philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Hobbes built on this materialistic worldview and it led to the secularization of society, just as Epicurus had hoped. Going back to Darwin, his own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin had published three books on “transmutationism,” as evolution was called, back then, and he was a well-known member of the European radical Enlightenment.  Charles’ father Robert was an atheist and evolutionist, well acquainted with the Epicurean atomistic theory.  Charles Darwin didn’t discover evolution, he merely documented fossil records supporting the view that humanity evolved simply by chance.  In his second major work The Descent of Man, Darwin argued that for humanity to continue to evolve intellectually and morally, we had to eliminate those who are “less fit.”  This led to his moniker as the Father of Modern Eugenics, a theory fully embraced by Margaret Sanger, Adolf Hitler and others.

While I’m debunking myths, let me mention a couple of other long-held misconceptions.  The idea that the Church tortured and imprisoned Galileo is widely misunderstood.  It was not his discovery that the earth rotated about the sun that got Galileo in trouble with the church, but his earlier work, published under the title, The Assayer, in which he openly advocated the ancient materialistic doctrine of Epicurus, for which he was found guilty of heresy.  His punishment was to live quite comfortably under house arrest in the luxurious palace of the Medici in Rome, where he continued his research until his natural death.  He was never tortured or imprisoned.   The myth that people in the 15^th century believed the world to be flat, is also false.  When Columbus departed for “the East” by traveling West, everyone knew the world to be round.  In fact, in the year 999 AD, Pope Sylvester II, who was also a mathematician, calculated the circumference of the earth to be approximately 29,000 miles.   While he was off a bit, the pope and his contemporaries also knew the universe to be immense, having estimated it to be in excess of 116 million miles across.  The reason why Galileo’s contemporaries persisted in believing the earth was the center of the universe, was the clearly observable fact that if the earth was spinning at 1000 miles an hour, common sense dictated that everyone would be able to feel the motion.  When Galileo proposed that the earth was moving and spinning so rapidly, it wasn’t just the Catholic Church who thought him wrong, but all his scientific peers, as well as Martin Luther and John Calvin who denounced Galileo as being out of his mind.

Finally, there’s the long-standing belief that Europe suffered through the so-called Dark Ages because scientific and academic progress were stilted by Christendom.  In reality, the Catholic Church built more than 60 great universities throughout Europe between 1000 AD and 1400 AD.  Millions of people were taught to read, write, use advanced math, and publish scientific discoveries.  This era produced dozens of scientific luminaries such as: Albert the Great, 1193-1280 AD, (astronomy, botany, physiology, mathematics); Roger Bacon, 1219-1294 AD, (the scientific method, light, optics, magnifying glass); Richard Wallingford, 1292-1336 AD, (precise mechanical clocks, exact measurement of time and motion); John Buridan, 1300-1361, (astronomy and the motion of planets); and hundreds of others, many being clerics, even bishops and educators in the universities.   The notion of the “Dark Ages” actually stems from the disastrous black plague which killed half the population of Europe in the middle of the 14^th century.  The Renaissance which began in the late 14^th century did not erupt suddenly, but was the result of centuries of progress, much of which resulted from Catholic Church’s effort to promote literacy and overcome the abuses of feudalism.

Turning to current events, we must all do as Paul suggests, and pray for our leadership in America.  We pray that they be honest and forthright in their presentation of factual information.  The recent debate over defunding Obamacare has included a barrage of false and misleading information.  I believe that an honest assessment of what has already begun to happen, reveals that the Affordable Care Act is indeed making healthcare less affordable, and driving employers to drop coverage and/or reduce full-time employment.  This is most likely the reason why two-thirds of all new jobs created this year have been part-time.  The idealistic notion that Obamacare will expand coverage for the uninsured is turning out to be wrong, and very possibly having the opposite effect.  Unfortunately, all the heated rhetoric around these issues clouds the facts and misleads the public.  I for one, am glad that the Republicans finally mustered the courage to attempt to defund the most egregious aspects of the new healthcare law.  If you want to show your support for this effort, consider signing the petition at www.dontfundobamacare.com/‎. 

 

The Prodigal Son, Secularism, and Religious Freedom

This Sunday’s familiar story of the Prodigal Son focuses on the mercy and forgiveness of God.  The wisdom of Jesus’ parables is that there are many lessons to be learned from the various elements of the story.  One that is easily overlooked in this parable, is the fact that the errant son rejects the faith of his father and chooses to ignore God’s law.  He forsakes his religion in favor of selfish pursuits.  In effect, he chose a secular, materialistic lifestyle and the consequences lead to his ruin.

This term “secular” is being used a lot these days in the discussion about religious freedom.  Recent legal arguments to enforce the HHS mandates have been based on the notion that corporations are secular legal entities and therefore not capable of having a religious conviction.  This is the case made against a woodworking company that employs 950 people, and is owned by Mennonites.  Attorneys for the government argued that the corporation is secular, not religious, and therefore not protected by the First Amendment.  Circuit Judge Robert Cowen found in favor of the state, as follows: “We simply cannot understand how a for-profit secular corporation can exercise religion.”  He went on to say that the corporation could not impose its religious conviction on its employees. But what exactly does it mean to say that an entity is secular?  The Judge and the federal government imply that secular means something like “entirely neutral and just.”  But this is not the case.  Secularism is a very specific worldview with its own beliefs about the nature of the world and what is good for humanity.  There are two aspects to the secular worldview:  the rejection of Christianity and the affirmation of materialism.  Materialism denies the existence of the spiritual realm and regards the human body as merely physical.  According to the secular worldview, happiness is attained by maximizing physical pleasure, comfort, and convenience.  ­Secularism regards Christianity as an obstacle to attaining happiness because it puts constraints on absolute freedom.  The Secularist views an unborn baby as nothing more than a bundle of cells, which, if inconvenient, can be disposed of without consequence.  This is considered a progressive viewpoint and one rejects the moral values held by Christianity, which it considers to be antiquated, outmoded, and an obstacle to human freedom and the pursuit of happiness. 

Like the Prodigal son, the secularist seeks the freedom to pursue happiness by grasping at physical comforts, without regard to the moral consequences.  In Jesus’ parable, the Prodigal Son represents all people who deny Our Father’s moral truths in favor of seeking happiness through the exercise of absolute freedom, and it points to the disastrous consequences.  By imposing his worldview on others, the Secularist does exactly what he accuses Christians of doing: compelling his worldview on others.  Not satisfied with giving homosexual couples the right to marry, the secularist now insists on teaching all children that homosexual marriage and premarital sex are perfectly normal and acceptable, as long as one is properly vaccinated and takes precautions to avoid pregnancy.  Not only is this worldview communicated through the media, movies, and television programming, it is now becoming the law of the land.  Anyone who denies this version of the secular truth is accused of violating the civil rights of others.  The religious beliefs of business owners are being completely disregarded and held to be a violation of the law if they infringe on the secular definition of the pursuit of happiness.  If a Mennonite business owner, Christian Hospital, University or Catholic social service agency incorporates, must it then comply with the secular dictate that it pay for birth control, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization?  And if so, why not require payment for abortion and euthanasia as well?  This is exactly the kind of interference the founding fathers meant to avoid by writing the First Amendment.  They were adamantly opposed to the State imposing its moral views on any citizen by suppressing religious belief or requiring any person to be complicit in violating their religious beliefs.

One question about the parable of the Prodigal Son still gnaws at me.  Did the wayward son return to his father simply because he ran out of money and was hungry?  Or did he see the error of his ways and finally come to realize that his father’s worldview was the true path to the common good and lasting happiness?  I would like to believe it is the latter because the father says, “Your brother was dead, and now he is alive.”  This coming back to life is possible only because of the father’s mercy, but it also requires a change of heart in the son.   The European Union has intentionally adopted a secular worldview and codified it in their new constitution.  Now they are beginning to suffer the consequences: their population is declining; their economies are faltering as they have begun to run out of money to fund their social welfare programs; and they’re borrowing mountains of debt with no conceivable idea how their dwindling future generations will pay for it.  Like the Prodigal son, will they come to their senses, or will they continue down this path until they are completely out of options?  Will our own country do the same by abandoning its moral heritage and imposing a secular worldview on every citizen and corporation? 

Religious freedom lies at the heart of our great nation.  It fosters personal accountability, promotes population growth which has enabled our economy to become the strongest in the world, and recognizes the rewards of leading a virtuous, moral life.  Let’s all pray that our great nation preserves religious freedom and avoids the pitfalls of imposing a secular worldview on everyone.

Following Jesus in the 21st Century

This week’s gospel readings include the sermon on the mount and the beatitudes.  After spending a night in prayer, Jesus chose the 12 apostles and the remainder of chapter six in Luke’s gospel contains the familiar words of Jesus:

“To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you,
what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.”

Today, as in Jesus time, these words are counter-cultural.  Our natural tendency, when provoked, is to respond in like manner, whether in words or action.   It is considered weakness to back down when bullied, and foolish to roll over and accept ill-treatment.  But this is what it means to follow Jesus.  How can it be that our God wants us to suffer at the hands of our human brothers and sisters? Perhaps it is precisely because we are all brothers and sisters and children of God.  As a parent, everyone with two or more children has at one time or another broken up a fight saying something like, “I don’t care who started it… just quit fighting!”  Or when a child says, “He started it,” we reply, “I don’t care who started it…  blah, blah.”    Of course this makes little sense to the offended child who walks away sulking and feeling unfairly treated.  But isn’t this little scenario exactly the same as us adults who are constantly arguing over everything from politics to religion and sports?

We find it easy to find fault in others’ reasoning and we are offended when they disagree with us.  But does that mean we should just lay down and passively give in to anyone who attacks our beliefs or criticizes our values?  Is that what Jesus was saying at the Sermon on the Mount?  I think not.  Remember, this is the same man, the very Son of God, who overturned the money changers’ tables and repeatedly took on the Pharisees, saying “Woe to you… hypocrites… rich… blind guides, etc.”  Clearly, Jesus was not a shrinking violet. 

So which aspect of Jesus’ example do we follow, the one who overturns tables and shouts down Pharisees, or the one who says we are blessed for being meek?   Well, maybe both. Being meek doesn’t necessarily mean remaining silent in the face of evil.  Nor does it mean we should accept cultural norms when they violate God’s Truth.  Remember, Jesus also said, “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.”   For many years these words never seemed relevant to me, but lately, Christians are being mocked and accused of everything from ignorance to violating the civil rights of others for refusing to condone abortion, gay marriage and even euthanasia.  Yes, they are bombing Christian churches in Syria, Egypt and other middle-eastern countries, but closer to home Christians are being taken to court for refusing to participate in gay marriage ceremonies; Catholic adoption agencies have been closed down for refusal to place babies with gay couples; and employers are being forced to pay for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, contrary to their religious belief that it is morally wrong.

Being a Christian is not for wimps.  Following Jesus takes courage and the willingness to speak out against the evil that is disguised as the path to personal fulfillment.  It also means praying for our enemies, loving and forgiving those who offend us.  After all they are children of God, our brothers and sisters in Christ, whether they know it or not.

The Dangers of Pride

Sunday’s readings are all about the importance of humility:

“My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.
Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.” (Sirach 3:17)

In today’s gospel Jesus relates the parable of the wedding feast where an attendee is embarrassed by having to move in order to make room for a more distinguished guest.  Jesus was Himself was humble, living the difficult life of an itinerant preacher and withdrawing from the crowds frequently to pray quietly and alone.  Humility is one of those virtues we hear very little about anymore.  In our secular society, pride is viewed as justifiable and deserved by those who have achieved a measure of success, or who hold public office.  Hollywood stars use their notoriety as a platform for expounding on everything from economics and the environment, to religion, politics, and science.  The one thing people have in common when exercising their pride, is the notion that they have answers for everything. Perhaps a good definition of pride is, thinking you know what’s best for everyone.   I have to admit, I am ashamed of the way I have allowed pride to creep into my life.  As the president of a small company, and on occasion the chairman of a couple non-profit boards, a lot of people kissed up to me, and I allowed it to get into my head at times.  In retrospect, not a pretty thing, and I regret it deeply.  Retirement has a way of helping me put things in perspective, but I still struggle with it.

When I look at the damage done to people, and to our entire country because of pride, I’m overwhelmed with grief.  Presidents and other politicians seem to think they are so smart and so wise that they can create a more perfect society, if they acquire enough power over the masses whom they assume to be incapable of managing their own affairs.  Based on the history I’ve been reading lately, George Washington was the exception to this, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the worst offenders.  FDR’s first appointee to the supreme court was a high-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan who wrote the majority opinion on a case that set the precedent for the current misunderstanding about the separation of church and state.  Since then, judges have used their discretion (thinking they know what’s best for everyone), to eliminate school prayer and any reference to God in public places.  FDR took a great many liberties with the constitution, increasing the power of the Executive branch and calling his plan the ‘new deal.’  He even proposed a second bill of rights in which every citizen would be guaranteed a home, healthcare, and financial security, sounding a lot like the promises of socialism in which the state promises to take care of everyone.  FDR set up a massive bureaucracy which, despite the myth that it overcame the Great Depression, actually delayed and impeded the economic recovery.  The bureaucracy FDR created is not only with us today, but has grown into a behemoth consuming trillions of tax dollars and producing reams of regulations that do much more to slow down progress and the economy than anyone realizes.

Currently there are more than 2 million people working for the federal government, not including the military.  Thinking they know what’s best for everyone, these bureaucrats produce between 80,000 and 100,000 pages of new regulations every year, a number that is increasing at an exponential rate thanks to recent healthcare and banking laws that have empowered the current administration to set up hundreds of new departments on top of the thousand or so that already exist.  The IRS alone plans to hire 16,000 new agents, just for the purpose of enforcing the new healthcare laws, even though the new regulations are far from being completed.  Thousands more are being hired at HHS where they will be cranking out new regs for years to come.  Guess who pays for all this?

Nobody seems to notice that for all this massive growth in our government, the poverty rate is as high as it has ever been, more people than ever are receiving food assistance, our economy is faltering, and our education system is failing miserably.  It is ironic that the same politicians who proudly assert support for ending poverty and discrimination, are the very people making both worse.  Case in point:  poor minority children in Louisiana benefit greatly from that state’s voucher program, enabling them to get a better education and having a choice of schools, but our federal government is attempting to shut down that program.  The result: poor kids continue to get a lousy education and the cycle of poverty continues among minorities.  Another example: Detroit which has been governed by Democrats for 50 years, is bankrupt.  For decades the city has promoted unions, imposed high taxes, and massive regulation, all of which has driven business and citizens away.  In fact over the past 30 years, the population of Detroit has dropped by over 60%!  Part of that also has to do with low birthrates, attributable the demise of marriage and families, abortion, and poverty.  No wonder the city is bankrupt.  By the way, city employees and retirees are now going to be getting their healthcare from Obamacare, at the expense of all the nation’s taxpayers.   It won’t be long before other big Democratic cities will be in the same boat, and look for the same bailouts to escape their healthcare and pension liabilities. 

Thinking you know what’s best for everyone is evidence of pride and I know I am guilty of it, even as I write this blog.  However, pride needs to be tempered by humility and guided by faith which asserts that there is much more to reality than this secular world.  Respect for the dignity of every person requires us to practice humility by listening more than we speak, and to respect the views and beliefs of those who disagree with us.  Humility also demands that we not force our beliefs on others, for this is the basis of tyranny.   Even God does not force anyone to do anything, but instead has given us a free will and intellect.  He has also given us the gift of time and the ability to reason.  Using our human intelligence, we are capable of observing and learning from the consequences of choices over time.  In doing so, we discover that God has revealed certain universal truths pointing us to the common good.  When we disregard these truths we put ourselves in peril of self-destruction.  This goes for personal decisions, such as how we care for our bodies and how we treat others, as well as the collective choices we make as a society.  Recent history, like the consequences Detroit is experiencing, should be a lesson to us about what happens when we make bad choices.  The consequences of Communism and Socialism are no less obvious, and should we a warning about what happens when personal freedom is abridged by government dictate.  We are very fortunate to live in a free country, founded on Judeo-Christian values.  If those values erode, and are replaced by secularism, not only are we likely to lose our freedom, we risk facing the same fate as other countries now on the verge of economic and social collapse.  Detroit, and other big cities where education is failing, crime is rampant, birthrates have plummeted, and the economy is being funded by debt, have lost their vibrancy and point to the failed policies of a secular worldview imposed by government fiat.  Perhaps what we need is leadership that will return us to the values and liberty our founding fathers envisioned when they wrote the constitution and established our “Republic.”