There is something in this video that so resonates in my spirit that I want to shout it to the world – I am satisfied in Christ, Christ alone. I want to be more satisfied in Him. I want every disappointment, every loss, every crushing pain to be an occasion for joy in Him. And, like Piper, I feel a strong anger against every teaching that sells out our birthright for the shiny chrome of earthly good. I am constantly amazed at how worldly is the church and how little it is weaned from the things that pass away. The temptation that Christ faced in the wilderness goes on - in the very name of the Christ who chose the path of suffering. God spare us.
In the bailout frenzy now going on, government wise men are trying to figure out how to prop up failure. The market is not giving up or giving way – failure must be punished. Whether it is GM, Ford or Chryler, AIG, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, mortgagees who bought over their head or banks that gave easy credit. The market is trying to heave and economists keep pouring down its throat medicine to keep it down. It won’t succeed. Americans are not going to buy shoddy American cars made by people who are shielded from the consequences of not paying attention and getting very well paid to do it that way. The market is putting the chessmen back on the board in their right places. I am a capitalist through and through. Its development is one of the great contributions of Christian principles in Western history. As one person has remarked, and there is truth in it, capitalism has done more for the suffering of humanity than all the compassion ministries of the church throughout the world. If it is compromised then more people will suffer. I, for one, am looking forward to the political dialogue this recent financial collapse will stoke. Things can be righted and the people enlightened. These next few years will be a lesson in what the government cannot do. I hope that even the suffering and the hurt from the spill-over from these tough times will gain a new set of eyes and eschew government paternalism.
And this is a time for the church to strut its stuff. The church must learn that the job of government is not to be the church. I, for one, am encouraged that we have a President-elect who has been very close to the social-economic underclass. My hope is that his years of immersion in the politics, economics and social ills of the South Side of Chicago will result not in paternalism but nobility and heroism as an individual calling for each one of us. My hope is that when the rich do not want justice but simply more of the pie, he will slap their hand and tell them they have to wait in line like everyone else. My hope is that he will tell the poor that their hope is not the riches of another person but in the power of dignity, work and creativity. Our economy is trying to teach us these lessons. Are we listening?
