Counterfeit Christianity

Well, here I am again, and here we are just a few days away from a very important election for this country. I am still contemplating dedicating a new blog to my political viewpoints and feelings, but for now, I will make some points here. I know politics is a hot arena, and I do not wish to offend, but I do have strong feelings about the political dealings of this country.

One of my greatest concerns, as I have watched the movements and machinations of government, is that we, the American people, are becoming a nation of passionate, but ignorant voters. Now, before anyone out there gets upset, let me say that ignorance is not the same as stupidity. Ignorance is an absence of knowledge or experience in any given area. When we the people get our political news from short sound bites, bumper stickers, Jay Leno, David Letterman or Saturday Night Live, we are missing the boat.

That having been said, please refrain from using the word ignorant to describe people that disagree with you! Disagreement does not equal ignorance! From either side of our current 2 party mess. Ignorant describes the person who has never seen an actual bill, or looked at the voting record of the person they support. They just go by the last thing "their guy" said in the latest picture op speech. Ignorant describes someone who doesn't understand how our inspired system of checks and balances was intended to work, and all things good or bad are attributed to one man, one party or one government body.

Ignorant describes someone who doesn't see how taking one person's freedom today, in order to support a special interest group or political agenda, sets the stage for removing other freedoms down the road when the leadership changes.

The word socialism has been thrown around a lot in this current election, and there are many of us who feel like socialism is not the right direction for this country. Ignorant describes a person who claims to hate socialism but doesn't understand HOW everything they say and support falls into classic textbook examples of socialism.

A person who understands what is going on, and chooses to keep moving this way, is not ignorant! They make choices based on what they feel is the best for this country. We have the right to disagree! The trick question of the day may become.....will we always have the right to disagree?

With all of this buzzing around in my head, I got into a discussion with my son Justin, something which frequently happens while working together on the family chicken farm. We were discussing comments that he had heard, and questions raised by some of my students about what was so bad about socialism?

That is not an easy question, and our discussion came up with a valid reason for the challenge. Socialism is a great counterfeit.

Christianity, Judaism, moderate Islam and most other world "religions" have as part of their specific doctrine the idea that we are bound by faith to help those less blessed than ourselves. We are taught to search out the widow and the orphan and offer help. We are taught that the world around us is for our benefit, but that we must take care of it and treat it responsibly. We see that our association with like-minded people strengthens us in our resolve to live by "right" principles.

When Christianity or any of these benevolent religions is flourishing and strong, "righteous" believers will take care of the needs of those who can't care for themselves. But each of them has conditions regarding personal responsibility. There is little, if any, need for "administration". Merely constant admonition to believers to keep their own , and assistance in distributing the gifts of the charitable. On the other side, a person who refuses to try, who makes no effort to care for themselves, who functions as a leech on the group, is destined to be thrust out.

This is a very shorthand version of the system.

The counterfeit is forced charity....Socialism. A governing body decides what is "rightfully" acceptable as a standard of living. They make arbitrary decisions as to what constitutes "too much wealth", and set in place means to take and redistribute any wealth accumulated beyond this point. They decide for the individual as well as society, what is acceptable in public discourse, in public behavior. This government entity decides how each person should live, and those who attempt to live beyond this are penalized through this forced charity.

Sadly, however, this counterfeit is fraught with problems, one of which is a tendency toward corruption. Those who amass great wealth feel they have earned what they have, and they will do anything to protect it, even to a point of skirting the laws and values that used to be dear to them. Think of the fable of the sun, the wind and the old man. The wind claimed it could remove the old man's coat faster than the sun. The harder it blew, the colder it became, the tighter the man pulled his coat around himself. The sun shone pleasantly, and the old man shed his coat to enjoy the warmth.

These who have worked hard for their blessings of financial wealth will be like the old man. The harder one pulls to remove their blessings by force, the harder they will try to keep control. Allow them the freedom to succeed, and promote the concepts of charity and benevolance and many will willingly give much more than you could take from them. Will all..? No of course not! There will be greed and selfishness, but no government program is going to remove that. Only a change of peoples' hearts.

The other danger of socialism, maybe the greatest danger, is a tendency toward apathy. Take the American dream. We believe we can succeed!, We have been taught as part of our American heritage that each of us can make our own way in this world, and we can be hugely successful, or we can flop. Our own hard work, education, ingenuity, and perseverance make us what we want to become. If I believe that I can become a multimillionaire, these things are possible in this great country! I will have to work my backside off, but it can be done.

However, forced "charity", socialism, takes away my incentive. Why should I work and slave to make my business or farm ar anything grow, when I know that beyond a certain point the government is going to come and take it away to give to someone not willing to try as hard? Why not just let the government take care of me as well? Why should I attempt to better myself, when the government ensures that I am only allowed to keep a small portion my success? Of course the flipside question is ...Where does the government get it all? You know the answer. They take more, by lowering constantly what is "acceptable wealth", or raising the tax on success.

Listening to a radio interview about what socialism is in this country, it struck me. Socialism allows those who see nothing better for themselves, who don't feel the motivation to achieve their own American Dream, to piggyback off others. A person who can't see anything better from their own efforts, may be perfectly happy to ride on the backs of harder workers, under the disguise of social programs and government assistance.

Those of us who still believe that charity should be from the heart, not from the Legislature, need to stand up. We need to educate ourselves and those around us to the dangers of counterfeits. These counterfeits rob us of freedom to succeed, but ultimately they rob us of our motivation. Other freedoms will follow, if we allow it to thrive.