The health part of this equation was experienced over two-hundred years ago when we covenanted together to create a more perfect union. Now, the nation was not in perfect health even back then. No nation ever was. But still, our national cheeks were rather rosy compared to our present condition. Most of us have noticed the decline in health to some degree. Those who have been walking around for over fifty years find the signs unmistakable. Definitely, the patient is getting worse.

It can be a little confounding to know where to start this conversation. This is not because we lack symptoms or points of contention. No, the headache comes in deciding from which to choose among the vast spectrum of diseases before us. Which will kill us first, the cancer of our moral depravity or the obesity of our national debt? As the writer I also have to wonder what is there new to say?  Especially, what is there new to say that anyone should care about?

Many of us Christian conservatives listen to talk radio. There we find almost endless jabber about the state of the economy. The topic is certainly important. With 8% of us unemployed (over 20% by Shadow Statistics’ count) and the national debt through the roof (temperature over 104 degrees if we maintain our medical metaphors) we can hardly ignore these symptoms any longer. Symptoms is likely too weak a word. Hmmm—what do doctors call it when the bad indication becomes a full part of your normal condition? Whatever it is we now have the full blown disease and are heading for economic strangulation and death. We may not be at our last gasp but we can see it from here. No, no, wait, I mixed my metaphor. OK, try this—we may not be at our last gasp but for sure our national economic breath is sounding labored. Better? I know, too wordy. I hope you are having as much fun with this as I am. Anyway, lots of us agree, we are in big fat trouble in the money column.

Even though the talk radio guys and the conservative web sites endlessly address our budgetal corpulence I am thinking that those issues are not the worst condition we exhibit. We also suffer from a sever case of bureaucratic bloat. Prodigious quantities of hot air combined with the shredded liberties of the people create a fecund human barrier of somnambulant stinkers who diddle away our freedoms by just doing their jobs. They are hired to slow things down and it works. Try to get your driver’s license in Virginia in less than three trips and they will iron-jaw you out of it every time. Back you go for more papers and to face those bulky government gate-keepers again.  

However, the gaseous effusions from the bureaucrats, while severely annoying, may not kill us (unless we starve to death waiting in line). Unfortunately we have also contracted more serious pathologies. Megalomaniac et Lunatickus seems to have gotten into our foreign policy organs. We now find it impossible to mind our own business and just defend our own borders. That is one of the great lessons from the books of Judges and Kings. God blesses the righteous army that fights for its own borders (our wives, our houses, and our little ones). When Israel decided to stray from that program, say by picking an unnecessary fight with Egypt, you can find the results by reading about King Josiah’s war with Pharaoh. It was Josiah’s last mistake. Fighting foolish foreign wars can get a lot of people killed, and for reasons God has not commanded. We need to cure this disease before God uses it to cure us.

Yet, once again we have not gotten to the most formidable diagnosis. And, there are quite a few germy manifestations yet to investigate. For instance, when we think about our tax bills and the IRS, we understand almost intuitively that we are under some kind of wilting curse. The first land taxes recorded in the Bible were imposed as a way to fund the tribute put on the people by, guess who, the same Pharaoh who defeated Josiah in an unnecessary war. My, how one thing leads to another. The disease of sin shows its head clearly here so it is useful to point up. We are way beyond paying a temporary tribute, a temple head tax, or any of those kinds of innocuous impositions. We have entered into full blown slavery by Egyptian standards (20%—read my post on Egypt and Liberty). However, once again, there are worse diseases.

I believe our most life threatening condition is spiritual. As a nation we have loved darkness rather than light. We have rejected the Truth of God and believed lies. The things God calls ‘sacred’ we have called ‘not sacred’. By our behavior we are disturbingly close to being him of whom God speaks when he says that, “the truth is not in him.” We cast about for better law and better culture than what God gives. We want miracles, while denying the possibility of them. We remind each other to celebrate life, but we murder our unborn children. We caution our children against greed, but we apply for every government benefit we are lawfully allowed. We speechify our families about the benefits of a good education, but we doodle away our time on TV series and internet gossip. The nation is sick and we are the nation.

So, no more funny lines today, nor cute definitions. We need to start obeying God, and we need to train up a generation after us to do the same. And that—is the cure for every disease our nation suffers.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach

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