ITLT-17-E Idolatry in America -Part 2 Our Incurable Disease

In part 1, Idolatry in America, I mentioned the gods of the entertainment industries (music, film, TV), sports in its various modalities, and money and politics, of course, and I focused on the latest addition to America’s pantheon of false gods the up-and-coming supreme deity: the god of health and fitness. In this episode, I talk about the fatal disease we rarely hear about and for which no cure has been found.

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Medical science has made great progress in the diagnosis and treatment of all sorts of diseases and physical disabilities. We have every reason to be thankful for these advances that reduce pain and suffering, and stop the spread of a disease or minimize its impact. But even when we assume a disease has been eliminated, we usually discover that somewhere there is still an ember that is waiting to burst into an open flame. Polio and measles were deemed to be almost eliminated, but as the saying goes, “almost only counts in horseshoes.” And that historic killer of the Middle Ages, bubonic plague has somehow started to show up again.

The ancient search for the Fountain of Youth has not died out; the techniques and processes for maintaining youth and cheating death are multiplying through AI. While there are a few who seem to actively pursue that course, a more realistic goal has been put forth in programs like MAHA, Make America Health Again. The reduction of the amount of processed foods and sugar in our diet is a major part of that, plus more physical exercise and time spent outdoors in fresh air can’t be bad. Apart from the high-priced medications offered by pharmaceutical companies for a wide variety of ailments, we find an increasing number of supplements of minerals, vitamins, and enzymes; skin creams, herbal teas, and powders and oils extracted from medicinal plants or ordinary fruits and vegetables. They may not be as high-priced as the high-powered prescription drugs, but judging from the proliferation of these over-the-counter remedies, and the amount of advertising on TV, they must be real money-makers. We may achieve a semblance of flawless skin and a trim profile, but we end up dying anyway.

My mother, who lived to the age of 103, was always keen on walking and exercising until the very end. My sister tells about one of her sons, who, years ago, when he was about 5 at the time, was staying at Grandma’s house on the farm. One day, when she set out on her daily walk to the neighbor’s house a half a mile away, he started out with her, but his little legs couldn’t keep up with hers so he sat down at the side of the road and waited for her to get back to where he had been patiently waiting. Almost prophetically he said, “Grandma, you’re going to be really healthy when you die.”

But here in Part 2 of Idolatry in America, I want to talk about a very serious disease affecting our country and the world as a whole. A lot is said about the symptoms; the problem is widespread, but the disease itself is rarely diagnosed. Sporadic conversations touch on symptoms such as the lack of leadership in the home, or at best poor examples of leadership due to absent or on-again, off-again fathers. The resulting lack of respect for authority is passed on to the classroom, where grade school teachers find their hands are often tied by rules coming down from their superiors. The consequent lack of respect for property is demonstrated by blatant shoplifting and the destruction of cars and businesses. Civil authorities who fail to fulfil the role for which God instituted them (Rom. 13) facilitate the further manifestation of disregard for human life, and physical violence escalates to muggings and street killings. The acceptance of abortion on demand and the killing of the smallest human beings has planted the seeds of disregard for human life, which matures and ripens into the senseless killings in the streets of cities and the assassination of those who espouse opposing political views. Even if the attempt fails, it’s the thought that counts.

Following every school shooting, every mass shooting or violent protest demonstration, we hear the refrain: “We must make sure this never happens again.” But of course, it always does, in one way or another. So, what is this disease and what has been proposed to deal with it?

Better education has long been proposed to counter the negative effects of juvenile delinquency. Obviously, there’s an advantage to learning to read and do math well, but test scores are going down and in many cities crime is going up. Illiteracy itself is not the problem. Johnny learns to read, excellent! But what does he read? It’s like nutrition. The lack of food is truly a problem, but if people only feed themselves on the wrong kind of food, there’s still a problem. One problem has simply been replaced by another one.

Freedom of speech is a hot button issue everywhere we look because there’s a problem when the freedom of expression is repressed. Then why the call to monitor social media platforms more closely? It’s not the quantity of speech that’s crucial, but its quality. Why die of thirst on a deserted island if you’re surrounded by an ocean of water? One of the tactics of warfare used to conquered fortified cities was to poison the water supply.

It’s obvious to most people that mass shootings are the fault of shooters with a history of mental problems. The obvious solution is to remove the mentally deranged from open society, because if you remove one weapon, such as a gun, they’ll use a knife or a brick instead. That’s a form of social amputation. But amputating one man’s leg due to gangrene doesn’t keep infection from destroying the body of another person.

In recent days I heard other suggestions for dealing with the shocking events of Charlie Kirk’s assassination: “Hug your family”.  “Listen to others” was offered as a way of dealing with the violence, blamed on the tendency to not communicate with those who have a different view. There’s nothing wrong with those ideas, but they are as effective for curing the disease as putting lotion on  your chapped hands while you’re suffering from double pneumonia.

A disease that is undiagnosed or ignored is a disease that’s not treated. A disease that’s mis-diagnosed is a disease that’s  mis-treated. Being unaware of a heart disease, denying you have a problem, or knowing it and ignoring  it means that even though there is a treatment, the disease continues its deadly progress. Equally serious, perhaps even more so, is knowing you have a problem, but it’s mis-diagnosed. The doctor will conscientiously, and to the best of his ability, treat the wrong disease. No wonder your double pneumonia isn’t getting better after taking the medication for acid reflux. And that’s where we are in today’s society. The true nature of the disease is ignored or misunderstood.

Here is my personal story

When terrorists brought down the World Trade Center towers in NYC on September 11, 2001, local religious leaders on Madeira Island held a joint “prayer service” at the Catholic Cathedral as a way of showing solidarity with America and us Americans who were reeling from the shock of the attack. The Catholic bishop was joined by Anglican, Lutheran, and Adventist leaders, and I was invited to participate as well, since I was the pastor of the Funchal Baptist Church, which we had organized in 1980. But I had a second invitation to attend the service, in my capacity as the US Consular Agent for Madeira Island, a post I held for over 12 years.  I was not in attendance to stand with the other clergy; I sat in the pew as the representative of the United States and American residents on the island.

Each of the religious leaders took 5-10 minutes to offer a word of support to America and Americans and to reflect on the causes of the attack. They universally laid the blame on the inequalities between the northern and the southern hemispheres; the oppression of the rich countries of North America and Europe against the poor developing third-world countries of Latin America and Africa. Despite the various liberation movements of the last half of the 20th century, the effects of European colonialism still lingered and the 9/11 attack was an expression of the desperate retaliation of oppressed peoples.

I listened carefully to what each of the four speakers said and realized there was one word that not a one of them uttered. Not one church leader ever mentioned the word “sin”. In the intervening years since that time, terrorism, violence, and hatred have continued and in many ways they have increased. The evil acknowledged by everyone is actually a fatal disease that will never be cured because it’s not being properly diagnosed. Not until sin is recognized as the root cause of society’s problems will there ever be a cure. In the very first family of humanity, Cain killed his brother Abel, and in the thousands of years since, mankind has only advanced in devising more devastating and efficient ways to kill more than one brother at a time.

In September, as I began composing these thoughts for broadcast, the Washington Post published an opinion piece that summarized just what I am trying to say. Matt Bai’s article, “The real enemy of democracy sneaked up on me” expresses his despair at the direction in which society is moving. His hopes were that the innovations in the means of communication offered by the new technologies would benefit the democratic nature of America; they would become a sort of virtual town hall for the exchange of ideas. His early hopes have been dashed by the turn taken in the way those means of communication are being used.  He wrote, “What went wrong? How could so many of us have been so wrong about where these platforms would take us?”  He offered three possible reasons, which I briefly summarize here:

 1) “… we thought the companies that owned these platforms would care about the country and their impact on it. They don’t.”  His assessment: “…[they] actively promote conflict and conspiracy ,,,  because those things promote engagement, and engagement equals money.”

2) “ … people haven’t gotten more sophisticated … about distinguishing fact from fiction, which a lot of us believed would happen … The truth is out there, but it’s often discomfiting and nuanced and hard to find, and not nearly as satisfying as believing whatever you want and mocking those who don’t.”

3)  “… the country wasn’t clamoring for a new civic space to debate the pressing issues of the day; … What Americans seem to prefer — or at least the subset of them who live on social media — is a private square of people who already agree with them.”

What’s wrong with America? What’s the disease we cannot cure? The Bible offers the simple answer: it’s the sinful nature of mankind. Even what is often classed as the inherent good in all of us is a carrier of the deadly virus of sin. It evidences itself in selfish motives, hateful words and evil acts. As incurable as the disease appears to be, there is a cure. Jesus’s death on the cross is the cure, but we sinners have to be willing to undergo the only treatment that will work. We must admit our sin and turn from it and come to Jesus in repentance. Jesus told Nicodemos, the religious leader of his day, “You must be born again.”  In other words, we have to start over again with a new beginning, with a new nature. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold all things are made new.” What is needed is the radical spiritual do-over only Jesus can give us. All the good nutritional intentions of MAHA, all the medical advances in AI, all the efforts of civil rights advocates to achieve social justice, all the diplomatic initiatives of politicians in search of peace—these are but forms of palliative care given to a dying patient. There is death, because there is sin, and all our gods are powerless to deal with it. Jesus is the only person who has died and risen again in victory over sin and death. As long as we misdiagnose our disease or ignore the only treatment for it, the incurable plague of sin will continue to destroy our lives and our society. The prognosis is fatal, but the cure is effective.

Repentance of sin and belief in Jesus is the only cure. Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die — ever.” Then He asked her, “Do you believe this?”. John 11.25-26. And I ask you the same question, “Do you believe this?” If you don’t, you are doomed to die an eternal death from a disease for which there is a cure.