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Christianity Today, December, 2008 |

A Serious Decay

We're paying the bill for relativism.

Charles Colson with Anne Morse | posted 12/31/2008 08:45AM

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This financial crisis is in reality a crisis of character. And the taxpayers are stuck with a staggering bill and a shaky economic future.

The long-term casualty of this debacle is freedom. When free societies abuse their freedom, governments step in. The government recently announced that in the future, mortgages could not be granted unless there was a written record proving the borrower had the ability to repay the loan. How comical that simple common sense now has to be written into law.

So good luck to the incoming administration. I pray it can bring stability back to the economy. Band-Aids won't do. We need a complete overhaul of our national priorities. But we Christians have an even bigger job. Unless we can renew in our culture a worldview encouraging virtue and responsibility, the economic maelstrom of the past year will only be a foretaste of things to come.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous columns by Charles Colson are available on our website.

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December 2008, Vol. 52, No. 12

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susan

Posted: January 13, 2009 10:13 AM

By voting 5 stars, it does not mean I am in agreement with the article or not. It stimulates thinking and for that it is a good thing. It is so hard to express with words what God the Holy Spirit has to be able to teach each individual Christian. Each person is responsible to pay attention to the H. S. and seek His guidance if they profess the faith as Christ did. Christ had faith and perfectly lived out the faith by doing the will of His Father in Heaven. People need to see his example of this. Not even His works are what we need to see. We need to see HIM and HIM in ONENESS with the FATHER. Alas, many of us who have this faith, seek this greater oneness as a lifelong pursuit in worship of WHO He is. At the same time we do live in this world. All I want to say is, in a sense, all of this talk is insignificant in the larger scheme of things, in the Spirit, talk is not what is needed. Just each of us needs to be faithful and allow the Church Universal to the "silent talking".

T3266

Posted: January 05, 2009 6:49 PM

It has been said that one of the great curses of our times is people speaking above their knowledge, and clearly Colson knows nothing about current economics or the scriptural proscriptions about it. Colson learned the hard way that ethics makes a difference, yes, and so does economics, but he's made no compelling case as to how they can be integrated in a world full of materialism, idolatry and corruption. If 2000 years of Christianity hasn't saved us from ourselves and our capital flaws, who does Colson think Obama is that he can????

H. D. Schmidt

Posted: January 04, 2009 4:32 AM

With all due respect to the sincerity of Charles Coulson; I personally demand an apology from him when he starts the article with: "Americans are hoping . . . " Not all Americans are that stupid Mr. Coulson, while you seem to exclude yourself to begin with, and yet you still get a big "F" from me as I read your article. Number one, let me suggest, that America never ever really obeyed the Founding Fathers in truly establishing a Capitalistic free market economy, period, based on the Biblical principles upon which this nation was founded. The proof lies in the fact that because of greedy wealthy money men, they soon started running truly sweat shops in America, with many a time child labor included working up to 12 hours a day with very little pay, while the Federal Government really did nothing to stop such, hence labor Unions were born and as of today, remain ever stronger. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is completely unknown in business. NO ROOM TO SAY MORE!

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