"Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people" (Proverbs 14:34, NIV)
Arnold Toynbee, the renowned British historian, made the following observation about Western society:
1. There’s a decline in honesty, and absence
of common purpose in the Western world.
2. Material success and gross national product are
aims of Western peoples and governments.
3. Nations rise or fall in relation to the moral unity
of the family and the moral purpose of the state–
both in decline in the West.
Even though Toynbee was pessimistic about the West, he believed if leaders of government would appeal to the ideals of the people and not just to their pocketbooks, there could be hope for an ethical revolution.
I would clarify the above by stating that if the government was preserving the God given rights of the individual our founding father’s fought for rather than enslaving the population by onerous government taxation and regulation, and expected the individual, exercising their God given rights and freedoms to excell, our nation would rise to even greater heights.
The down-turn in our society started when the federal government decided it could choose what was best for the individual and started a steady intrustion into individual’s rights and responsibilities, replacing them with laws and regulations, entitlements, and permissions granted by the state. The ever growing central government has led to the degradation of the population. Rather than raising up mature men and women of valor, the state with it’s ever expanding entitlements is making dependents of us all. Let us once again declare our independence from tyranical government and once again cry out for liberty and justice for all.
True, we need an ethical revolution, but much more we need a spiritual revolution. Without a spiritual return to the laws of nature and of Nature’s God we really can not expect a return to ethics. John Adams so wisely stated:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Unless we turn to God and acknowledge his rightful place in our hearts, and as the One who made our nation possible, and rebuild our nation’s moral foundation based on his directives, neither an ethical nor a spiritual revolution is likely to happen, and America will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Just another view from the nest. What say you?
