The Stunned Value Extractors Circle the Wagons
A good friend of mine is a young financial analyst at Bank of America. We meet for a meal occasionally and talk about the things of the World. I've been interested in particular in his take on what I've written about value assessment. What is interesting is that even as a devout Christian himself, he very graciously confesses he just does not get what I'm writing, all of what I'm saying is just way over his head. He's even told me, "I just look at the plain words of the Bible."
This should bewilder me because this is precisely what I am doing. But I understand. I understand why, as smart as he is, he is oblivious to what the World does:
My friend has been fully indoctrinated in the things of the World by those who are sworn to keep him looking at only the World.
Many profound truths have emerged from the economic whirlpool in which the country is drowning right now. I submit that these truths are some of the simplest to understand, but I will say that it does require the mind of Christ to get. I'm no spiritual genius, but anyone may understand if they'd just ask God to share those things with him.
With a $700 billion dollar bailout of financial institutions of all stripes--add this to all the other money pledged and the tab is up to a trillion dollars and change--the latest "Too Big To Fail" entity is the American people themselves. Over and over you hear the most powerful big shots from Capitol Hill and the Bush Administration that they just can't let the economy tank. It is frequently said this way, "We just can't fail the American people."
But it is also quite clear that if you go around rescuing people from the consequences of their foolish choices, you enable them to continue to make those same foolish choices. This is called a "moral hazard," and every educated individual knows about it. It's just...
Few know what is going on as a result of that condition.
And this is where many get derailed from a quite simple, plain understanding of things. Many just cannot see that there are two different realms in which one may live.
There is the World and there is the Kingdom.
In the World is where you have good people in government, banks and investment firms, and even churches who will manage your foolish behavior if you let them do so. In a very real sense, when it is announced that $700 billion is being pledged to bail out whoever and whatever, the World System is simply putting a price tag on its job of sin management. In other words, if you are a sinner refusing to do what it takes to have your sinfulness eliminated completely, then the World must do its job of being your master.
And all week it has been easy to see how pricey that can be.
On NBC's Meet the Press this morning, Washington Post business analyst Steven Pearlstein performed with an exquisitely subdued exasperation and said this about the very wealthy financial mavens and the awful decisions they made:
"They were fooling themselves, they weren't fooling us, they were fooling themselves and they were fooling us at the same time..."
Guh?
What is also happening from this is that the most rabidly conservative Ron Paul supporter-types will screech red-faced about how socialist this all is (and it certainly is) and advocate running off to Montana with gold and guns in hand. What they don't get is that if they have Christ's name of their lips they are dishonoring Him by running away from being salt and light to a dying world.
If they do stay amongst those He'd like them to minister to, but they remain in 501c3 incorporations and all the other World contractual obligations designed to keep people's sin in check, they're immersing themselves in the very World they so revile--being abjectly double-minded as James so incisively wrote in the Bible.
This is just not rocket science.
But $700 billion.
There are that many people who just don't get it?
Who just don't get that this amount is dwarfed by Jesus' blood shed on the cross to get rid of it all completely?
This should bewilder me because this is precisely what I am doing. But I understand. I understand why, as smart as he is, he is oblivious to what the World does:
My friend has been fully indoctrinated in the things of the World by those who are sworn to keep him looking at only the World.
Many profound truths have emerged from the economic whirlpool in which the country is drowning right now. I submit that these truths are some of the simplest to understand, but I will say that it does require the mind of Christ to get. I'm no spiritual genius, but anyone may understand if they'd just ask God to share those things with him.
With a $700 billion dollar bailout of financial institutions of all stripes--add this to all the other money pledged and the tab is up to a trillion dollars and change--the latest "Too Big To Fail" entity is the American people themselves. Over and over you hear the most powerful big shots from Capitol Hill and the Bush Administration that they just can't let the economy tank. It is frequently said this way, "We just can't fail the American people."
But it is also quite clear that if you go around rescuing people from the consequences of their foolish choices, you enable them to continue to make those same foolish choices. This is called a "moral hazard," and every educated individual knows about it. It's just...
Few know what is going on as a result of that condition.
And this is where many get derailed from a quite simple, plain understanding of things. Many just cannot see that there are two different realms in which one may live.
There is the World and there is the Kingdom.
In the World is where you have good people in government, banks and investment firms, and even churches who will manage your foolish behavior if you let them do so. In a very real sense, when it is announced that $700 billion is being pledged to bail out whoever and whatever, the World System is simply putting a price tag on its job of sin management. In other words, if you are a sinner refusing to do what it takes to have your sinfulness eliminated completely, then the World must do its job of being your master.
And all week it has been easy to see how pricey that can be.
On NBC's Meet the Press this morning, Washington Post business analyst Steven Pearlstein performed with an exquisitely subdued exasperation and said this about the very wealthy financial mavens and the awful decisions they made:
"They were fooling themselves, they weren't fooling us, they were fooling themselves and they were fooling us at the same time..."
Guh?
What is also happening from this is that the most rabidly conservative Ron Paul supporter-types will screech red-faced about how socialist this all is (and it certainly is) and advocate running off to Montana with gold and guns in hand. What they don't get is that if they have Christ's name of their lips they are dishonoring Him by running away from being salt and light to a dying world.
If they do stay amongst those He'd like them to minister to, but they remain in 501c3 incorporations and all the other World contractual obligations designed to keep people's sin in check, they're immersing themselves in the very World they so revile--being abjectly double-minded as James so incisively wrote in the Bible.
This is just not rocket science.
But $700 billion.
There are that many people who just don't get it?
Who just don't get that this amount is dwarfed by Jesus' blood shed on the cross to get rid of it all completely?
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