Why Our Economy Failed, and Our Culture Is on a Downturn

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

John Adams gave us the skeleton key to unlock all of the mysteries surrounding the maladies facing our nation and our culture. Men are born to be free. The bible says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1 NIV). The key to this verse is that Paul is speaking directly to Christians, and the verse pertains only to those who have accepted Christ as their Savior.

In Genesis 9, God establishes the governmental covenant with mankind. From that point on Man was to govern himself. Throughout history this governance has played out in the form of a despot, monarch, or totalitarian regime. When our nation was founded, it was founded on the principle that "We The People" could effectively govern ourselves. We would be a nation ruled by law not by men. It was the most brilliant system ever devised, but it has one fatal flaw.

The flaw is that it can only work as long as the people collectively agree to follow the laws; which are nothing more than an agreed upon minimum set of morals. Our system cannot handle immorality. The occasion law breaker will assert himself, and when he does, the systems survival depends upon that person being brought to justice by others representatives of the people who are more upright and care about the system. But what happens when those law breakers are not brought to justice?

The answer, as it is playing out in our economy, is that more and more lawbreakers begin to find opportunity. Once this begins to happen, good and upright individuals must act swiftly, if they do not, then they will be over run.

The ultimate conclusion to all of this is morality, even a minimum morality, cannot be agreed upon because the hearts of man are wicked. With out a source of ultimate morality, morals become subjective and relative to the point where no one can agree on a set of conduct.

Our economy and our culture are both doomed for failure and civil war. It is a conclusion that is inevitable. Our leaders are either unable or unwilling to bring to justice those who have disenfranchised there very people they were elected to protect. We protest to deaf ears. Our calls and letter means nothing, and come election time, we are forced to try to discern the lesser of the evils.

When a culture deserts God's law and tries to make its own, it runs into the unchangeable problem of subjective morality. John Adams gave us a direct warning that we have not headed. The real tragedy is that WE are the government in this country. A government simply reflects the will of its people. If many of us are honest, we are upset that government did not protect us from ourselves. The answer to the question, "what is wrong with our country?" is in the mirror.