I sometimes wonder why there seems to be such a malaise among those around me when there is any discussion of our political/economic situation, what got us here, and how we can be delivered. My answer came as I viewed once again the video series How Should We Then Live? by Francis A. Schaeffer (available from AmericanVision.org).
Concerning our culture, he stated,
As the more Christian-dominated consensus weakened, the majority of people adopted two impoverished values: personal peace and affluence.
Personal peace means just to be let alone, not to be troubled by the troubles of other people, whether across the world or across the city-to live one's life with minimal possibilities of being personally disturbed. Personal peace means wanting to have my personal life pattern undisturbed in my lifetime, regardless of what the result will be in the lifetimes of my children and grandchildren. Affluence means an overwhelming and ever-increasing prosperity-a life made up of things, things, and more things-a success judged by an ever-higher level of material abundance.
Schaeffer was describing the conditions which prevailed in the 1950's and 60's and which produced the counter-culture of the 1960's and '70s. Schaeffer died 15 May 1984, so he never saw the tremendous rise in attention to personal affluence which crested in the late 1980s and 90s. He wasn't a prophet, just an astute observer of world cultural history.
When driving along the rural roads of Tennessee, I am intrigued by the number of high-end pickup trucks and fishing boats parked in front of modest houses. It is also interesting to see the high percentage of satellite TV receivers on the sides of mobile (manufactured) homes.
Why should anyone be concerned about experiencing a swift slide into an earthly hell when we have the MBA, ABL, NFL, and NHL to entertain us?
In a recent survey of why young people join the military, the dominant response was not "to defend my country." Young people from both rural and urban areas join the military hoping to either "get out" of where they grew up or to get money for an education so they can "get out" of where they grew up.
There is no thought toward the future in either of these groups (adult or youth) above. What happens to their children and grandchildren is nothing more than a fleeting thought.
When a person loses their hope for any personal future, they die. When a culture loses its expectant vision of a future, it collapses.
We must have more than a simple Christian revival, there must be a return to Biblical ethics and Biblical cultural mores.
For a Free Tennessee.
From Solitude,
David O Jones
