We’re going to need a Christ centered vision.
To those not yet comfortable with full Christian theology but still recognize God, it will have to translate as a more generally God centered vision, which in fact it will be. Christ (and the Cross... I don’t think it may be an accident of naming that we have a Theodore Cruz rising here — “God’s gift of the Cross”) gives it better focus, for the Christian.
Let methodology be a distinct second behind the values and goals of faith. This is to restore a love in mankind that is rooted in the gift that God gave. Like the cross, it sacrifices, and like the resurrection, it results in renewal. I posit that they are literally spiritually tied, but the illustration should suffice for all. But as for what muddles Congress is in... let the question of how to deal with them follow behind the spiritual goals. Maybe through allowing greater freedoms, maybe through divinely inspired means, the country will develop unexpected new wealth, making the debt smaller if not nonexistent. Certainly such a boon of God as is modern health care shouldn’t be entrusted to as rough a treatment as it has gotten through Obamacare — that disrespects the Lord himself. The gospel cuts through quite a few Gordian knots, if allowed to.
Anyhow, I think the audacity with which US Christian faith finds its gospel voice (which is different from a culture war fought vainly with blunt instruments of politics) is going to have a lot to do with whether America enjoys a second chance. The whole FR site was dedicated to the proposition that America might, even though it was not certain how. I hope I am bringing to the table some more specifics of “how” and I would be tickled pink if every other believer could do the same! Spiritually I’ve had a hard, tough life. I’m about the most reluctant believer that there has been since, maybe, C. S. Lewis, but that’s because there was so much to turn around in my life.
Thank you for your thoughts.
The spiritual dimension of the problem and the solution should not be ignored.
The overspending of money is a problem of people as well as the governments they elect.
The spiritual dimension in my experience involves taking right actions, not just saying the “right things” or feeling the “right feelings”....
I won’t get angry or disturbed by the hypocrisy of others, but I must always remember my many years of being in essence
“A BORN AGAIN BIBLE BELIEVING, BLOOD WASHED DRUNK”.
I seek a daily sober relationship with God based on accepting the absolute truth about myself, working the 12 steps outlined in “Alcoholics Anonymous” and trying to live according to the 12 traditions outlined in the same book including the seventh which involves being “self-supporting through my own contributions”.
The ‘culture war’ unfortunately involved the GOP political machine capturing the hearts and minds of religious voters and manipulating them to elect candidates who in the end not only had a liberal tax and spend economic vision but an unwillingness to advance any conservative social agenda as well. They paid lip service to being “Pro-Life” and were backed up by GOP front groups claiming to be “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Family” and so on.