Over the last few weeks and months many people have espoused ideas for programs that can help our society to recover from the economic recession that has plagued us for the last several years. My own children have used one of the programs, unemployment insurance, because of the loss of jobs a couple of years ago. I am soon to become a member of the social security program next year. I have taught school where programs for student learning and achievement were put into place. I have utilized medical insurance programs, banking programs, communications programs, religious programs, and educational development programs, etc. throughout my life.
What strikes me is the conundrum of why programs are put into place. I have seen education abandon individual student achievement for a national requirement of testing students to determine if the school academic program is accomplishing it goals as set by the states and federal government. I have experienced the growth of medical insurance costs far outstripping the cost of living increases and my medical coverage stagnates or declines. We have been told by leaders that this program or that policy is best for all of us. The last election demonstrated the loss of rational action for the benefit of our country as candidates expressed their opinions with and without substance of individual benefits, only expounding the party line.
Can we become a more compassionate country again? I think we can one person at a time. My father’s sermon about this philosophy was given in the late 1970’s after a decade of dissent, the ending of the Viet Nam War, and a civil rights movement which left several prominent people dead as well as hundreds of our citizens. If each of us will discuss our ideas and opinions without acerbic criticism, maybe we will grow as a society instead of eroding into a failed world power. Let me know what you think.
Serve Persons – Not Programs
“There are persons who unsettle your minds by trying to distort the gospel of Christ.” Galatians 1:7
In these latter days we have been fed all kinds of programs by all kinds of leaders – for the so called benefit of mankind. They have led us away from our true goal and befuddled our minds. We have been majoring in minors.
But the mood of the people is changing. Having tried social legislation, violent confrontation, group manipulation, study commissions, and every variety of gimmick, young people, older people, and church people are coming up with some surprising new reactions.
Take the young people between the ages of 15 and 21, for example. A poll by Life magazine came up with answers such as these:
i. Has your upbringing been about right? – 81% yes
ii. Do your parents live up to their ideals? – 80% yes
iii. Do your parents approve of your ideals? – 64% yes
iv. Do you have trouble communicating with your parents? – 64% no
v. Is religion important to you? – H.S. 77% yes, College 56% yes
A further study showed the Bible as the number 1 read book and 45% of Americans attend church weekly.
Time magazine quoted Dr. Van der Hoag “The mood today, particularly on campus, is toward personal relationships rather than politics, love rather than sex, feeling rather than action, Two years ago, we had a great number of mass actions, peace marches, college demonstrations, etc. They were not successful. Today we’re entering an era not of radical advances, but of consolidation. We are turning inside rather than outside.”
This, to me, is the nub of the problem and solution. During the 60’s and 70’s the emphasis was on changing society rather than man. Programs, people, leaders, substituted the gospel of man for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was replaced by causes.
The real enemy is not race or ecology or the establishment, or the population explosion or hunger. It is the power of evil itself joining with the evil impulses and hang-ups, defeat, ego, despair, self-doubt, and frustration that each of us experiences in our own lives every day.
How do we come out of this unhappy syndrome and this cause-centered ideology of change? By changing people not society. By going straight to the book of one’s faith – the Bible. See what the prophets of Jesus had to say. In the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy Moses says some very cogent things to individual Jews, to the Jews as a people, to the Jews as a nation. “Today I offer you the chance of life and good, or death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I give you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by conforming to His way and keeping his commandments, then you will live and increase and the Lord God will bless you. But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led on to bow down to other gods and worship them, I tell you this day you will perish.”
Turn to the New Testament and read it with care: see – Jesus’ continual concern was to warn, serve, heal, and liberate people. The causes which grew from his concern for people, i.e. poverty, illness, death, liberation were consequences of his interest in people. He pastored people all through His ministry, for example: feeding the five thousand, healing the sick, and raising the dead – Lazarus and Lazarus daughter.
He made survival possible for everyone but only possible as they accepted Him as the giver of the mighty gifts of life. “Therefore choose life,” said Moses.
“I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the father but by me,” said Jesus.
Any social action or change we desire must come out of worship and obedience – simply because you change society by changing people. Change one’s life and we can become God’s Power and Light Company.
The Reverend Norman Stockwell
Pastockwell's Blog 