Looking for Answers in All the Wrong Places?

Our nation is afflicted by many maladies: Rampant violence, social strife, political corruption, unethical business practices, immorality at levels no one could have imagined just a couple of generations ago. Almost everyone has an opinion on how to “fix” these problems, often suggesting that more and stricter laws will do the trick. 

 

Laws are necessary, of course. We as individuals and as a society need guardrails to help us recognize what is and isn’t acceptable behavior and practice. However, we have more than enough evidence to show that laws alone have never eliminated wrongdoing. 

 

Consider the operation of motor vehicles: We have many laws against driving under the influence of chemical substances, yet people still drive intoxicated. We have laws against texting while driving, but every day we can see folks behind the wheel, heads lowered as they read or send text messages. Speed limit signs are posted everywhere, but that doesn’t impede motorists who reason those restrictions don’t apply to them.

 

As so-called experts hop on their own “bully pulpits,” offering supposed solutions to everything that’s wrong in our world, I can’t help but wonder whether we’re all searching for answers and solutions in the wrong places. It’s like going to a doctor with an illness, and the physician prescribing acetaminophen or putting a bandage on where you’re feeling pain but paying no attention to the underlying cause. Treating symptoms does little good when the disease causing the problem is ignored.

 

At no time in human history have people been perfect; we’re far from it and always will be. As Romans 3:10 declares, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” Isaiah 64:6 expresses it even more strongly: “…all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Imagine trying to clean a kitchen table with a dirty cloth a mechanic has been using all day to do oil changes.

 

And yet, the evil in humankind – the Bible calls it sin – seems to be escalating in horrifying ways. When I was attending public school in the 1950s and early ‘60s, the biggest problems teachers had to deal with were things like running in the hallways, chewing gum, throwing spitballs and occasional playground fights. We never feared someone coming into our school with the intent to kill. Students might have been disrespectful at times, but they didn’t threaten their teachers with bodily harm. Indecent sexual behavior and proliferation of drugs in classrooms were unheard of.

 

What changed? There’s great risk in attempting to oversimplify very complex societal issues. However, could it be that the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision that Bible reading or prayer in public schools was unconstitutional became a catalyst?

 

During my school days, every day started with reciting the Lord’s Prayer, reading a short passage from the Bible (usually the Psalms), and repeating the Pledge of Allegiance, which included the words, “one nation under God.” These did not convert every student to Christianity, but neither did they leave anyone emotionally or psychologically scarred for life. In effect, school began with a reminder of the God who deserves our attention.

 

Then came the school prayer decision, which signified more than the simple removal of “religious” practices. In effect, it was a declaration at the highest level of government that our nation did not need God, that we could do quite well without His presence and interference. Decisions have consequences.

 

Consider some of the societal shifts that have followed: the sexual revolution of the ‘60s; the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision; the breakdown of the traditional family across the USA; the aforementioned explosion of violence in many terrible forms. If we were to “connect the dots,” could there be a correlation to the conclusion that God deserves no place in the public square?

 

The New Living Translation of Proverbs 29:18 declares, “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild.” The King James Bible’s translation says it more emphatically: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Today, people are perishing everywhere: School shootings; gun violence every day in our inner cities; domestic violence; an epidemic of drug abuse deaths; thousands of traffic fatalities, many attributable to impaired and reckless driving.

 

This isn’t to suggest that to solve our nation’s ills we need to get “religious.” Not at all. However, a genuine, life-changing relationship with God is the ultimate solution.

 

The ancient people of Israel had laws upon laws, as we discover in reading books like Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But those did not keep them from becoming a nation riddled with sin. The underlying issue was the evil in their hearts. God asks in the book of Jeremiah:

“What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?... Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostacies will reprove you; know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God, and the dread of Me is not in you” (Jeremiah 2:5,19).

 

In the writings of another prophet we read, “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). Six decades ago, we could say the “wisdom” of our government leaders found it necessary to “sow the wind.” Do grim headlines and one terrible news report after another serve as evidence that we’re “reaping the whirlwind”?

Digging to Uncover the Real Root Causes

Whenever someone attempts to present simplistic solutions to incredibly complex problems, the best justification is naivete. The worst is absolute stupidity. But it seems when considering the conundrums confronting our society – and the world – some causes and solutions aren’t even being given factored into the equation. 

Whether it’s gun violence, or poverty, or racism, I’m of the conviction that at the root of all is our determination to disregard the truths and principles God provided for us in the Bible, His inspired Word. Sorry for sounding like a simpleton, but in my view, it all boils down to a matter of choice: Doing things God’s way – or doing them the wrong way. 

I rarely venture into the realm of politics in my posts (at least directly), but sometimes solutions are not so much political as they are spiritual. Let me offer some examples:

Children being raised in poverty is a legitimate problem. But studies have shown the vast majority of children in poverty are being raised in single-parent homes, most headed by females. Single moms do incredible work, and deserve great admiration and respect. But they’re attempting to do a job no single person was ever intended to do.

From the start, God designed life – and family – to be a team undertaking.“…The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.… Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man…. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife” (Genesis 2:18-24)

Elsewhere, in a broader context, the Bible speaks of the value of partnership: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has not one to help him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).

Our society over the past five decades has increasingly promoted the idea of single parenthood, often including the notion that men (fathers) are unnecessary in the family scenario. I fully understand that many times single moms are not that by choice. But doesn’t it make sense that having two adults working together, rather than one struggling alone, is preferable, whether for spending time with their children, handling household responsibilities, paying bills, or making difficult decisions?

Violence – with guns or otherwise. No question, violence is a perplexing and fearful problem in our society. When it comes to gun violence, our tendency is to place the blame primarily on access to weapons. But with well over 40,000 people dying annually in motor vehicle accidents, do we blame the cars and trucks? 

In the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court saw fit to redefine “separation of church and state,” interpreting it as the twain shall not meet between things civic and things of faith. As a result, the Bible, prayer and all references to such as the Ten Commandments have been removed from most public schools. It happens that one of those commandments is “thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13) – literally, you shall not murder. As I was growing up, I and my fellow classmates had no fear of someone coming into our school armed to create mayhem and death. But we also were reminded daily of commandments such as thou shalt not kill, or steal, or lie. Knowing those things were wrong became a no-brainer.

At the same time, our culture has dramatically ratcheted up the violence quotient of theatrical films, TV programming, computer and video games, even comic books. Billions of dollars are spent each year to produce advertising and commercials to encourage consumers to buy products ranging from groceries to restaurant food to cars to skin cream. Yet some argue to the contrary that violent programming has no effect on the human psyche. That’s ludicrous.

Racism also is a problem that has plagued not only the United States but also people throughout the world. Yet the passage of laws hasn’t succeeded in eradicating it. Changing hearts regarding prejudice and bigotry is as much a spiritual matter as a legal one. 

In the gospels, Jesus dealt with racism. The parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) must have horrified many of His hearers and caused quite the scandal. The hero of the story – a Samaritan who was the only one to offer mercy and compassion on a battered traveler – was a member of a race despised by the people of Israel, especially its high and mighty religious leaders. How dare Jesus use him as an example of what it means to “love your neighbor”?

Similarly, when Jesus encountered the “woman at the well” (John 4:1-42), conversing openly with her, He was addressing both racism and sexism. The culture of the time dictated that men would not openly acknowledge women in public who were not members of their family. Not only that, but the woman was a Samaritan; even worse, she was a woman of ill repute. Yet Jesus treated her with dignity, sensitivity and understanding.

I’ve experienced in my own life how God has opened doors for building strong, caring relationships with people different from me, whether in ethnicity, background or beliefs. However, it was not my doing – it was His work in and through my life. Laws could not have forced me to do that.

So as our esteemed public officials posture and pontificate about these and other pressing concerns, I’m convinced that until we accept that the root causes are as much spiritual as they are social and political, they will not go away. They will only intensify until we recognize that unwilling to do things God’s way, knowingly or not, we’re insisting on doing them the wrong way.