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”?

What Happens When We Remove God from the Equation?

As a student in high school, I did reasonably well in math until I ran smack into trigonometry, when it became abundantly clear that my career course needed to be somewhere that didn’t involve an emphasis on mathematics. Up until then, I had enjoyed algebra and geometry, especially the formulas and equations. 

 

I remember glancing at the back of the book where you could find answers to problems in each chapter, marveling at how complex equations could be worked out to arrive at simple answers. The theorems and corollaries we had to memorize were intriguing, along with formulas to discover such things as the area of a circle or a triangle. Frankly, I haven’t had much use for those kinds of calculations, but they were fun to solve at the time

 

An interesting thing to consider is what it could mean to leave out one key element of an equation. For instance, I learned the formula for the area of a circle is A = π r². What if we left out pi? Well, for one thing, that might mean missing out on dessert. (Lemon meringue pi was always my favorite.) We definitely would not have the correct calculation of a circle’s total area.

 

Let’s take this thinking into another realm: Imagine what might happen if we sought to remove God from our schools and educational institutions, from government offices, corporate board rooms, entertainment studios, the news media, even from many churches. Oh, wait! This has already happened. We don’t have to use our imagination.

 

For decades, our society has systematically and deliberately determined to eliminate considerations of God from public discourse. We’re told matters of “church and state” should be kept exclusive from each other, kind of like the “east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet” mantra. 

 

In many colleges and universities, students are instructed that a Christian worldview approach to their studies is not welcome – and may result is harsh penalties. The “theory of evolution,” for example, is treated as an established fact, while reflections on the existence of God are dismissed as “fiction” and “fantasy.” Education at such institutions, sadly, seems to have turned into more of indoctrination – and their graduates leave to become major influencers in their fields of endeavor.

 

Public schools, where decades ago the major problems were chewing gum, running in hallways and throwing spitballs, now are infested with drugs, violence and virtual anarchy in many classrooms.

 

The political sphere, perhaps more than ever, can accurately be characterized by scheming, chicanery, deception, and all manner of unethical and illegal behavior. Even though “In God We Trust” remains emblazoned on our currency, and “under God” has been a part of our Pledge of Allegiance since the 1950s, mention of the Almighty in terms of how legislation is crafted and enacted often is met with scoffing and skepticism.

 

Is it any surprise that major corporations, led by graduates of agnostic universities and business schools, frequently engage in scandalous behavior and practices? The same can be said for much of the film, TV, and music industries. And let’s not even get started about the content of much of what lurks on the Internet.

 

One particular verse in the Bible sums up the scenario above very well. Proverbs 29:18 declares, “Where there is no [prophetic] revelation, the people cast off restraint.” The New American Standard translation of this verse states, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained,” and the King James Version perhaps says it best: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

 

There’s a second part to this verse, however, we should consider as well. It asserts, “but blessed is he who keeps the law.” The New King James says, “But happy is he who keeps the law.” Contrary to what our society seems to be insisting, the Bible tells us happiness and “the good life” are not found in defiance and rebellion against the laws and statutes God established, but in abiding by them.

 

Reading the Old Testament narratives, we see this repeatedly. The people of Israel would vow to keep God’s commands and find themselves enjoying generally quiet, comfortable and safe lives. However, before long they would grow discontented and decide to try out the ungodly practices of the peoples surrounding them. As a result, they would lose battles, suffer famines, and even wind up in exile. 

 

In Exodus 32:25, for example, we read, “Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them run wild and become a laughingstock to their enemies.” In the United States, we’re obviously not the people of Israel, but I sometimes wonder whether something similar is happening here in the 21^st century, thousands of years later.

What’s the remedy? It may seem simplistic, but it’s straightforward, right from the Scriptures: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2). A simple prescription, really. And yet, it might be just the cure for what ails us – as a society, and as individuals. 

Things Are Different Today, But What Changed?

Once upon a time, things weren’t like they are today. In some respects, that’s very good. When I was growing up, polio hadn’t been eradicated. And the open-heart surgery I underwent more than 12 years ago probably hadn’t even been envisioned. TVs had only three channels; to select you had to manually change with a dial on the set – no remotes back then. “Late night TV” after midnight was a test pattern.

Telephones had handsets cradled on bases. Many of us shared “party lines” (which had nothing to do with festive events). The notion of phones to take with you in the car seemed like science-fiction.

Air conditioning was a luxury most people didn’t have. Front porches were popular – it was too hot to stay indoors. And people flocked to a new restaurant called “McDonald’s” to buy hamburgers, French fries and milkshakes without having to wait for five minutes. But believe it or not, dinosaurs weren’t still living.

The list could go on and on, but without question things were very different back then. As a whole, western society had made many strides. But not all have been good.

Take, for example, our schools. When I was in elementary school (we called it “grammar school”), we started each day with the Pledge of Allegiance, a brief reading of a Bible passage (usually from the Psalms), and a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Today this happens only in parochial and private schools. 

I even recall participating in a classroom discussion with our teacher about God, but don’t remember anyone suffering emotional distress. I doubt that exchange left psychological scars on anyone.

In the mid-1960s, however, our U.S. Supreme Court deemed it necessary to evict such things as Bible reading and prayer from public schools, reasoning those were violations of the so-called separation of church and state. Freedom of religion was redefined to mean “freedom from religion” by the Left-leaning judiciary.

Although it wasn’t a one-for-one exchange, the most besetting problems in classrooms of the ‘60s – running in hallways, chewing gum, and throwing harmless paper spitballs – have been replaced by violence in many forms, drug use and abuse, and often chaotic environments where students, not teachers, seem in control.

This academic anarchy has advanced to the highest levels of education, again very unlike what I experienced at a public university during the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Yes, there was campus unrest, but all-out rebellion remained decades in the future.

Gun violence in schoolhouses or college campuses were virtually unheard of in the days when mentioning God wasn’t deemed illegal or counter-cultural. Things were far from perfect, without question, but evil seemed to be held at bay.

I don’t need to recite a litany of societal woes, but the breakdown of traditional family structures and the advent of an “anything goes” perspective on life seem at the heart of these problems. Many centuries ago the Scriptures addressed such circumstances for those times as well as ours today. 

Proverbs 29:18 asserts, “Where there is no [prophetic] revelation, people cast off restraint (run wild); but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom's instruction.” I generally prefer more modern translations that express the Scriptures in contemporary language, but I’ve always liked how the King James Version states it: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

It seems that beginning with the 1960s, our nation systematically turned its back on the foundational values and principles that helped to establish the most prosperous society in the history of the world. We clung to the material prosperity and strived to expand it, but snubbed the God who enabled our country to flourish. We became like the people described twice in the Old Testament book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6, 21:25).

God wasn’t “forced” from our schools and the public square. But when we as a people made it clear He was no longer welcomed there, He graciously withdrew. Now perhaps the Lord is asking, “So, how’s that working out for you?”

This is why the promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14 is crucial for our future, maybe more than ever: “if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Are we willing to do this? We wring our hands, bemoaning the many evils and ills that afflict our homes, our communities, our nation and our world. It’s time to humble ourselves, pray, seek the Lord, and reject our rebellious, sinful ways. Maybe it’s not too late.

We Don’t Reap What We Sow

Have you noticed some of the old sayings we commonly embrace aren’t true? For instance, “No news is good news.” Especially today with cell phones and instant communication, if you’re worried about a loved one’s well-being, not receiving news isn’t good news at all. When the phone rings (chimes or chirps), or we receive a text confirming they’re OK, that is good news.

We’ve all heard, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Most of us have felt wounds inflicted by someone’s unkind words, and often those take much longer to heal than physical injuries. Just ask a child scarred by a parent’s constant ridicule – or a cyber-bullying victim.

We not only reap what we sow, good or bad,
but reap even more of it.

And then there’s the beloved adage that tells us, “You reap what you sow.” Actually, this one’s half-true. If you sow tomato seeds, you’re not going to grow watermelons or rutabagas. But in reality, we reap MORE than we sow. As the Bible states in Hosea 8:7, “They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.”

Would you consider sowing a kernel of corn to grow…a single kernel of corn? Of course not. We sow some seeds of something, like green beans or lettuce or carrots, expecting eventually to reap lots of vegetables. Hopefully enough to give away to friends and family members.

We see this reality of reaping more than we sow in virtually every phase of life. We sow acts of kindness, and in return not only see people benefiting from our care but also receive the joy of having helped others. We might even gain new friends in the process.

An entrepreneur makes a big investment – time, money, sweat equity – pursuing a dream, not just to recoup what’s been put into it, but to develop it and receive much in return. Parents happily dote on their children, providing for their needs, intending for them not only to survive but also thrive and grow into mature, productive adults. Aspiring pianists spend countless hours repeating scales and enduring mind-numbing practice, not to develop excellence at practicing but to one day become stellar musicians. 

I bring this up because there’s also a downside to reaping more than we sow. Our society seems to be experiencing the fruits of its “labors,” reaping a lot more than it has sown – and not always in a good way. Here are a few examples.

During the 1960’s, many in my generation, the “Baby Boomers,” decided traditional sexual mores were “puritanical” and aggressively espoused “free love.” Sounded harmless at the time, but the sowing of this libertine approach to physical intimacy has reaped, among other things: an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases; cheapening of the God-created gift of sex, making it seem as inconsequential as a handshake or going to the bathroom; widespread use of abortion as a form of birth control; and devaluing of family relationships and commitment.

The old “shoot ‘em ups” of the early days of TV and the movies were deemed unrealistic, so Hollywood makeup artists and special effects engineers resolved to create more realistic killing. They did extremely well. Now mayhem, not only on TV crime shows and films but also in video games and the Internet, has spawned glorification of violence and an obsession with blood and gore. I can’t help believing this has contributed significantly to our increasingly violent culture.

And consider the decision, in the name of “enlightenment” and “tolerance,” to eliminate references to religion and the spiritual from the school day. No need to offend those who either believe differently, or don’t believe at all. Interpretations of the so-called “separation of church and state” have redefined freedom of religion to mean freedom from religion. As a result, the 10 Commandments, which prescribe wholesome guidelines for living – unless you’re a politician or an attorney, perhaps – were declared taboo within the halls of public learning.

The Pledge of Allegiance, which served as a daily reminder of being citizens of our proud nation, has also been excised from most schools. It seems saying “one nation under God” through the decades has scarred countless millions of students irreversibly.

In the years since – and I don’t believe it’s coincidental – the central problems in our schools have ceased being things like chewing gum, running in the halls, passing notes during class, and throwing spitballs, which were the key issues of decades past. Instead, today we rightfully fret over pervasive drug abuse, violence with guns and knives, sexual promiscuity, and classrooms out of control.

Proverbs 29:18 states, “Where there is no (prophetic) revelation, the people cast off restraint.” Or as another translation puts it, “Where there is no vision (of God), the people run wild.” I’m not advocating the forcible imposition of Christian beliefs. But as someone has wisely quipped, if we stand for nothing we’ll fall for anything.

As the verse from Hosea points out, we’ve effectively “sown the wind” and are now “reaping the whirlwind.” Earlier in the same passage God states, “the people have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law…. With their silver and gold they make idols for themselves to their own destruction.”

We need to be careful what we’re sowing. We might just reap a whole lot more of it – much more than we ever imagined.