Thursday, May 22, 2008

Will conservatives sort out what are legitimate needs that helps citizens and what is pure greed that hurts citizens?

America was once very wealthy and today we are not because America also has failed to cure our economic needs. Money has given us more freedom, but we are unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. America's attitudes towards money should be in their conviction that money is a social good, not a private possession and that the economic main purpose is the welfare of everyone in society, not the personal pleasure of the person who happens to have control over it. Throughout the Old Testament, there were lists of people who were wealthy and in fact the Book of Proverbs wrote who we use our wealth. Economic system is stewardship. So, regarding the political economic system, I have said before and I will say again, economic system is NOT the problem, its PEOPLE and their attitudes. One of my favorite quotes is from this billionaire investor Warren Buffett when he told his shareholders a few years ago: "If they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful." The idea that Jesus Christ has absolute and final authority over all of us in every detail of our lives is simply regardless of legalistic control by some evangelical Christians in the political world. We are in the world of self-deceit that we are too focused on ourselves to see the eternal truth. It is the selfish who possess the world while it is the meek who inherits the world. Church politics, controversies and worldliness have brought in the darkness that people cannot see the light. A Christian's economical life and standard of moral living are not private matters but rather they are critical issues of faith and discipleship. A Christian life in this world should be different from the world, being in the world but not of the world.

Charles Colson wrote in his book about Conservative Christians, "Who Speaks for God?'': "It's easy to become enthralled with access to places of supposed power. In time, however, without even knowing it, our well-intentioned attempts to influence government can become so entangled with a particular political agenda that it becomes our focus; our goal becomes maintaining our political access. When that happens, the gospel is held hostage to a political agenda -- and we become part of the very system we were seeking to change.''