Spiritual wickedness in high places

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” II Corinthians 5:17

Paul understood that before you could embrace any new idea the old idea had to die. In order to fully embrace your spirituality, for example, you have to let go of your materiality through the death process.

Similarly, the generational historians who wrote The Four Turnings suggest that the cyclical ways that generations interact produce a birth to death process for our country that repeats itself every hundred years or so.

The first of those turnings is a high, or rebirth of vision and optimism based on a shared sense of purpose. That new vision and common purpose is forged in crisis that marked the death of the previous social order.

The second of those turnings is an awakening when individualism starts to assert itself by questioning the values of the new social order.

The third turning is an unraveling where social order has been eroded to such a degree by the growth of individualism that it begins to break down. The current culture wars are a perfect example of that unraveling.

If these generational scholars are correct, the next turning will be a crisis of sufficient scale to overwhelm our individual differences and force us to create a new social order to survive.

The interesting thing, if you look back at history, is that few could have predicted the past three crisis (revolutionary war, civil war, depression and WWII) in the years just before those crisis gripped our country. Though it isn’t widely taught, a significant percentage of the colonial population was sympathetic to the British cause and at least in their minds revolution was unthinkable. Lincoln did all that he could to prevent a civil war and Grant may have been the only person who realized the savagery that was going to be required for a union victory. Hitler invading Poland was a surprise to everyone at the time and Neville Chamberlain carried the hopes of the old social order when he wrongly assumed that he has negotiated “peace in our time”.

In thinking about what the next crisis may be, I don’t think that it will be military. We’ve already seen in Iraq that overwhelming military force is no longer an effective tool for peace or stability. There is a possibility that a deep recession in the US will destabilize China by reducing our consumption of Chinese goods and putting a lot of people in Chinese cities out of work. That could force the Chinese military to take over and invade either Taiwan or eastern Russia in order to keep their economy going. If the rest of the world chose to oppose China, we’d have another very large war between countries that have nuclear weapons. Seems unlikely at the moment.

What is also possible in the China scenario is that they react to the economic downturn by becoming much more isolationist and threaten to bring down the world economic system by calling in their loans.to us and forcing us to default.

What I think is a more likely crisis could be the rapidly accelerating effects of global warming.  Rising sea levels and dramatic changes in weather patterns could force this country and the rest of the world to dismantle our fossil fuel-based economy and come up with a new way to produce, distribute, and consume things. We would also have to figure out massive infrastructure changes to deal with major population centers all around the world threatened by rising sea levels, droughts, and floods.  The new order flowing out of this crisis could be lead by science and technology and focused globally rather than regionally  or nationally..

It is also possible that a massive natural disaster, Yellowstone blowing up again, a large meteor striking the earth, or perhaps enough volcanoes going off at the same time to cause a mini-ice age - an event of sufficient magnitude that it would dramatically alter the fabric of the now highly interdependent global economy.

If the generational theorists are correct, the bad news is that the crisis in unavoidable. The good news is that our children will be the heroes who will save us and we will be the architects of the new social order which they will implement. We may not live to see the next golden age, but our children will prosper in it. And the cycle will start again.

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Gen 1:3

This is the basis for the first of the two creation stories in Genesis. In Scientific terms, this was the big bang. There is a second chapter in Genesis that introduces a talking serpent, but has a much less optimistic ending with man becoming a mortal sinful being. This pretty much set the stage for discussions that fundamentalists and progressives have been having ever since.

Scientists working on expanding quantum theory to the operation of the universe have come up with a second chapter of their own.

It wasn’t too long ago that scientists created the concept of dark matter to explain why the universe kept expanding. Based on the matter that we could see, the expansion from the Big Bang should have slowed significantly by now. So these clever guys said that there must be something else out there left over from the Big Bang of creation that we just couldn’t see that kept things running away from each other.

In 1998, scientists actually observed a phenomena which supported the theory of dark matter.

The problem is that another pair of scientists have now concluded that the observation itself may have altered the nature of this matter and as a result altered it’s ability to force the universe to continue to expand. This alteration will ultimately result in the universe collapsing back on itself like the film of the Big Bang run in reverse in very slow motion.

The reason why this argument has interest from a spiritual point of view is that it suggests that those that think the deepest about physical reality are telling us that this reality is actually an expression of our thought. In other words, we through our thought create our reality rather than some absolute reality acting on us to control or influence our thoughts.

If that is true, then where can we turn for dependable truth?

At least for me, the being that made the universe seems like a logical choice.

It also seems logical to me that if He created all to be good, it was good then and should still be good now. So when I see what appears to be evidence of poverty, sickness, war, and hate; where did the good go? Did God somehow change reality, or perhaps has my thought and the thought of millions of generations of humans warped our perception of good into our own human version of reality?

My sense is that God doesn’t change. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We are the ones who have an opportunity to change by figuring out how to be more like Him. As we learn how to be more like Him, our reality changes too. The lame walk, the dumb speak, the blind see, the poor have the gospel preached to them, wars cease, and all men treat each other as brothers.

Jesus proved that it doesn’t take much to change the world. Just an open mind and a willing heart.

Happy Thanksgiving

“And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.” Ex. 16:15

The interesting thing about this Bible story is that the Jews knew more about the food that they were eating in the desert than many Americans do about the food that we feed our families. Even though they had never seen it before, the Jews knew that it was inspected and approved by God. This is the same God that sent the plagues that got them out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea so that they could escape from Pharaoh’s cavalry, and squirted water out of a rock. They felt as though they could trust Him. They were also pretty hungry.

Our government is responsible for monitoring the quality of our food. This is the same government that invaded Iraq based on faulty intelligence, still has not rebuilt our gulf coast from hurricane damage two years ago, has spied on us without our permission, and replaced the largest federal budget surplus with the largest deficit in the history of this country. You surprised that our food doesn’t seem to be as safe as it used to be?

Here are some facts about food safety that you might find interesting.

There are 15 different agencies of our government responsible for various parts of our food supply. Those agencies are subject to 35 different laws which give them regulatory powers.

About 10% of our food supply is imported. That’s growing at about 15% a year. It comes from over 130 different countries.

The primary agency responsible for inspecting imported food is the FDA. The FDA last year was able to inspect only .7% of imported food, down from 1.1% the year before.

Here’s what the Bush administration has been doing about this for the past seven years.

Nothing

In fact, it’s worse than that. Five years ago Congress passed and the President signed a law requiring meat and other products to be labeled with their country of origin. If they couldn’t inspect it, at least you could choose whether or not to buy it.

The Agriculture Department has never put the law into practice because the Republican majority in Congress with the President’s support blocked its implementation every year since. They were not thinking about you. They were responding to the grocery store and meat packing lobbies.

Labeling for sea food, however, was implemented because of the strong sponsorship of Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, looking out for the fishing industry in his state.

Now that the President has lost his majority and can’t stop the labeling bill, what has he done?

What he should have done is the obvious. Streamline the inspection process and turn it all over to the FDA. Then fund the FDA so that it can do its job. Finally, extend the fish labeling laws which appear to working fine to the rest of the food supply.

Instead, he created a commission to study the matter. This commission is little more than another delaying tactic to mollify big political contributors and China, while keeping the American people eating mystery meat. Clearly George is no Moses.

I don’t think that anyone at this point doubts that the earth is warming.

There are still some who doubt that this warming is man made. A warming Mars is often cited to prove that if both the Earth and Mars are warming at the same time, it can’t be man and must be the sun.

A NASA group recently published findings which attribute the warming trend on Mars to a change in surface reflectivity caused by dust storms. It is NOT due to increased activity from the sun.

At the same time a UN group released the most detailed study to date in which they assign a 90% probability to human factors as the cause for global warming.

This is good news because we can’t control the sun. But we can control our own behavior. We also can’t control the knee-jerk Luddite response of ideological conservatives when the scientific facts don’t happen to support their world view. We can banish them back to the lunatic fringe by electing a President and a Congress in 2008 that will listen to the scientific community and take global warming seriously.

I also think that there is an opportunity for Christians to come together in a new coalition which reflects our responsibility to be stewards of God’s creation and lovers of our neighbors.

“That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.”

Titus 3:7-8

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matt. 25:40

I’ve been offline for most of this week because I was attending a business convention in New Orleans.

The good news is that the tourist areas are vibrant and as I left for the airport this morning, there was a rush hour traffic jam of folks going to work in the other direction. I also met some wonderful people on the trip down who are volunteering their time to help people in New Orleans rebuild their homes. If I met three people (one from Michigan and two from California) in one day on one trip, I can only extrapolate that there is a huge outpouring of help coming from all over the country.

Churches are organizing these events. The person from Michigan was on his third trip. You don’t read a lot about this in the paper or see much of it in the news, but these people aren’t out to make headlines. They are out to help those in need because they are selflessly responding to Jesus’ call. They are helping New Orleans and the Gulf states rebuild one home at a time.

The bad news is that even eighteen months after the storm and levee break, the level of devastation in New Orleans is still shocking. The President flew into town just as I was leaving, but there is still so much that needs to be done, that I’m surprised he didn’t just apologize to everyone he met. The locals told me that the only progress being made is from the volunteer groups that I spoke of. The federal, state, and local governments still can’t figure out what to do.

Regardless of your politics or your personal values, New Orleans is a great city full of spirited independent people. They have rich cultural traditions that go well beyond Mardi Gras and great restaurants. It is a city of artists and musicians. It is a city of beautiful old homes and wide boulevards. It is also a city in serious economic trouble. It is a city where the rich have returned, the poor couldn’t afford to leave, and the middle class have moved away. It is a city that appears to be sustaining itself on tourism and colleges.

It is also a sobering demonstration of how fragile and interdependent human economic structures really are. People need safe places to live, work, and raise their families. When those erode, people are forced into more and more desperate circumstances. Those that could afford to leave, have and they took their small businesses, trade skills, jobs, services, and money with them. Those that can’t look for whatever help they can find, and some satisfy their needs by turning to crime. We saw it in Detroit, we’re seeing it in New Orleans, and we’re seeing an extreme form of it in Iraq.

I’m sure New Orleans will recover, but the real criminals are those in our government who are failing these least of our brothers in their time of greatest need. I don’t know how or when these particular people will be judged, but I do know that they will be held accountable.

“They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” Titus 1:16

Those of you reading this that don’t live in Michigan may not appreciate what a weird winter we are having.

Many of us who live here do so because we like all four seasons. Winter in particular is a favorite of mine. The cold is cleansing. The snow transforms the landscape into a beautiful sparking white canvas. Sunny days are crisp and clear with a special blue sky. Winter is leveling. It doesn’t matter who you are, it is the same temperature for everyone.

The problem is that we haven’t had any winter so far. I continue to play golf on the weekends even though the course closed a month ago. The ski resorts from here through southern Canada have no snow. Cherry trees in New York think it is spring and are starting to bloom. A 41 square mile ice sheet that jutted into the Arctic Ocean off Canada for the last 3000 years has broken loose. Weather forecasters are predicting that within the next decade there may be an open water passage through the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The sea ice there has already shrunk two million square kilometers. That’s about the size of Alaska.

The vast majority of the world’s credible scientists agree that the earth is warming. Whether or not you are willing to agree that human activity is the cause, from a policy point of view, we can’t continue to ignore the topic. At this point, whether or not cyclical warming is involved, we are adding gases to the atmosphere that at least acerbate the problem if not actually cause it. Those gas emissions come from fossil fuels burned in power plants, automobiles, and factories. Those emissions are the only thing that we can control, and virtually every other nation emitting such gases has been willing to do so.

Unfortunately we have an administration in power that has rejected all attempts to curb emissions even though we are one of the primary sources. It certainly seems short sighted to suggest that we can’t afford it when you look at the costs from rising sea levels alone. But this is the same administration that has run up record deficits through profligate spending and seems perfectly content to pass those along to our children. It is also the same administration which illegally weakened EPA rules through executive order. So simply stonewalling the global community on this issue for six years shouldn’t seem so shocking.

As Christians, we should expect and demand more of our leaders. In addition to learning more about our Maker, we all have the responsibility while we are here to leave this place in better shape than when we found it. That commitment is a perfect demonstration of loving your neighbor as yourself. It is also being the faithful and wise steward that Jesus spoke of.

“And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.” Luke 12:42