A Sad State of Affairs?
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| Rachel Dratch as "Debbie Downer" Google Image |
I often wonder if I’m being too negative in these blogs. After all, I don’t want them to be downers, because my purpose is to help people who have given up on God and/or religion to find God. And if you’re trying to find God in the Christian tradition, it has to be with a sense of joy and wonder.
But you
have to “call a spade, a spade,” like the prophets of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles
do. I doubt that Isiah, Jeremiah and Micah, nor John the Baptist – nor Jesus
himself – worried about being too negative.
So, we have
to listen to modern-day prophets, who, though they may not consider
themselves spokespersons for God like the early prophets did, want to tell it like it is. Knowing ourselves makes us better.
Not Necessarily Religious
Many of
these modern prophets are not necessarily “religious,” though David Brooks –
the prophet taking much of the space of the rest of this blog – is obviously
highly influenced by the mix of Judaism and Christianity of his youth as well
as by modern theologians and thinkers.
Brooks, 64,
whose writing I’ve always admired, wrote “Time to Say Goodbye” in a recent
issue of the New York Times, after 22 years of employment there. You can decide
for yourselves whether he’s just a pessimist or a prophet, or both.
“…We have
become a sadder, meaner and more pessimistic country,” Brooks writes. "…Large
majorities say our country is in decline, that experts are not to be trusted,
that elites don’t care about regular people. Only 13 percent of young adults
believe America is heading in the right direction. Sixty-nine percent of
Americans say they do not believe in the American dream."
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| David Brooks Google Image |
“…Selfishness, egoism and the lust for power drive human
affairs. Altruism, generosity, honor, integrity and hospitality are mirages.
Ideals are shams that the selfish use to mask their greed.
“Disillusioned by life, the cynic gives himself permission to
embrace brutality, saying: We won’t get fooled again. It’s dog eat dog. If
we’re going to survive, we need to elect bullies to high places. In 2024, 77
million American voters looked at Trump and saw nothing morally disqualifying
about the man.”
I don’t believe you can observe what has been happening since
Trump began his political career without blaming him, but the problem is not
all his.
Collapse of Values
“…The
shredding of values from the top was preceded by a decades-long collapse of
values from within. Four decades of hyper-individualism expanded individual
choice but weakened the bonds between people. Multiple generations of students
and their parents fled from the humanities and the liberal arts, driven by the
belief that the prime purpose of education is to learn how to make money.”
Trying to
end on a more positive note, Brooks quotes Reinhold Niebuhr, the
American Protestant commentator on politics and public affairs, who died
in 1971.
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be
saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore, we are saved by love.”
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