Of Financial Crisis and Hopes for Better

Sitting by the hearth on a Sunday afternoon, comfortable and cozy, while the winter winds blow, it is easy to ponder how the changing of the year has come to be a time for leaving behind the failings of the past and embracing hopes for better in the future.  I reflect upon the general healthy recognition at this time that happiness in the new year is to some important degree connected with our own personal performance.  Success is not so much the luck of what happens to us as the result of what we do, hence our natural determinations to resolve to do better in some way or another.

Within a few weeks—or even a few days—many of us overcome such thoughts, abandon our resolutions to do better, and settle back into familiar patterns, including the narcotic belief that what happens to us is largely a matter of fate and fortune and little related to our efforts and actions.  Successful people are seen as more “fortunate” than others, who somehow owe something to the “less fortunate,” especially if we consider ourselves among the “less fortunate.”  How else could rational people conjure up the palpably false claim that it is fair to demand and take the property of more successful people and give it to those who have done little or nothing to earn it, who in fact have in many ways squandered their wealth and opportunities for success?

Had we as a nation embraced the principle that what a man or woman earns is his or hers to use or keep or share as he or she wishes, we would have avoided the weeks-long political soap opera called “the fiscal cliff.”  The misleading story proffered by the institutional media is that our nation is on the edge of economic calamity because Congress—meaning by implication the Republicans in the Congress—is unwilling to do its job.  In fact, there are important fundamental principles at the heart of the disagreement between congressional Republicans and President Obama, namely whether cutting government spending—mostly government give away programs—should be postponed by raising taxes on the “wealthy” and independent businesses, and moreover whether raising any taxes on a weak economy makes economic sense.  There is a growing gap in views over these principles.  But for the national cult of coveting there would not be one, but there is, and sooner or later it will be too wide to bridge.

Without this disagreement, we would address excessive government spending the same way that families do.  Families that spend more than they earn will either borrow (within their means to support debt), reduce spending, or earn more, or some combination of these.  Our government has almost exclusively relied upon borrowing (beyond our ability to support it without foreign help), has increased its spending, and has “earned” less. 

On this last point, keep in mind that governments do not earn anything; people do.  Governments take what people earn.  Government policies over the years have reduced economic growth below the growth of government, inhibiting the ability of people to earn, which in turn undermines what our government can afford.  This trend has not been getting any better and has brought us to economic crisis.  A refocus on economic growth, not government growth, is what is needed, but there lies the disagreement in Washington.

In that context, I take advantage of the year-end season of better rationality—however brief—to propose that the bells we sound for the new year ring out the old and destructive coveting for the fruits of others’ labors and ring in the determination to improve our own condition by our own labors.  I propose that for you and for me and for our society as a whole we commit to rely more upon ourselves and to unleash our creative powers for growth and prosperity.  In the same way we will increase our ability and willingness to help others, but we will do so as a healthy exercise of our free will.  Government cannot be generous, for there is no generosity in distributing other people’s money.  But the individual people who make up society can and will open their hands to those around them, as Americans have more than any other people for more than two centuries.  More productive ourselves, we will have more means to share and better judgment about how to share it—ennobling to ourselves and to those we choose to aid.

Of Christ and the World of Tribulation

The text of one of the most famous and popular of the choruses from Handel’s Messiah is taken from Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a child is born,” a very clear prophecy of Jesus Christ given seven centuries before His birth.  Isaiah declares that the coming Messiah would be called by several of His many names.  Among them—

Wonderful Counselor,

The mighty God,

The Everlasting Father,

The Prince of Peace.

I reckon that this is more than a mere list and that the order is not accidental.  It seems that each title is a progression from the former, reflecting what He means to the progressing believer in Christ. 

Faith is not something that you either have or do not have.  It is a dynamic gift possessed in growing or diminishing degree.  Jesus Christ during His mortal ministry among his disciples frequently pointed out to them that they needed more faith, that their faith was still “little.”  I do not recall that He told them that they had no faith, just not enough.  He wanted their faith to grow.  Luke records the plea from the disciples to the Master, “Increase our faith.” (Luke 17:5)  Later Paul writes to the Corinthians that his ministry will grow as the faith of the saints is “increased” (2 Corinthians 10:15).  In his second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul rejoices in God that the faith of those saints “groweth exceedingly” (2 Thessalonians 1:3).

During this Christmas time, especially in a world of gathering troubles, perhaps a good way to worship Christ—which is the true spirit of Christmas—is to reflect upon how your faith has grown and how that growth affects what the Savior means to you.

Do you call Jesus Christ your Wonderful Counselor?  If so, you are doing well.  The Savior’s counsel never fails, never leads astray, always leads to happiness and success.  I can personally testify that in my life when relying upon counsel from God I have never made a major mistake, whether in family relations, career choice, or the timing of life’s large events.  I have also been guided in uncounted lesser things.  The ancient American prophet Helaman promised to his sons that if they would build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ they would be on “a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” (Helaman 5:12)

But Christ is more.  Too many in the world who are at best casually familiar with Jesus and His words and work would dismiss Him as being a truly wonderful counselor, but one among many throughout history.  Does your faith allow you to call Him more?  Do you recognize Him as the mighty God?  The testimonies of many since Adam proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and God.  The Apostle John, who knew Jesus personally and from direct association perhaps as well as anyone who walked the earth, declared that Jesus was God, that “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1-3)  Do you have the faith to receive Christ as the mighty God, before whom you worship no other nor have any higher priority?

Being God need not cause the Creator to be distant from us.  One of the great messages of the gospel, anciently as well as in modern times, is that our relationship to God is one of family.  Paul wrote to the Romans,

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans (8:16-18)

God is literally our Father, the Father of our spirits.  We lived in His presence, in His family, before He sent each of us to this earth as part of our eternal progression to become more like Him through the experience of trials and testing, trials and tests that all of us would to some degree elect to fail.  Our Father did not intend for those failures to be permanent.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:17)

Every week, every day, we receive powerful reminders that a lot of saving is needed.  That among so much evil and destruction on the earth goodness and kindness can exist and even flourish is unmistakable evidence of the presence of God and His influence.  As we become full time participants in those realms of goodness and kindness, and are saved by the spiritual transformation that comes through Jesus Christ, we are reborn into the family of God.  As the ancient American king, Benjamin, explained to his people, we are thereby “called the children of Christ, and his sons and daughters” (Mosiah 5:7).  This rebirth comes through keeping covenants to follow Christ

with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent . . . then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels . . . . (2 Nephi 31:13)

In short, for all with sufficient faith so to receive Him and be spiritually reborn, Jesus becomes the Everlasting Father.

Once having received Christ and the spiritual rebirth He offers, the task of life is to press on into the light.  As we do so the prophets have promised, “the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.” (Isaiah 32:17)  The Savior explained to His apostles during the last supper,

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.  In the world ye shall have tribulation:  but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

And so He has, and He promises that in Him so shall we.  As we follow and receive Jesus Christ in our daily walk, being transformed in thought and action, our endowment is “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding”.  (Philippians 4:7)  Then for us the promise of Isaiah is realized, and Jesus Christ becomes our Prince of Peace as we enter His peaceable kingdom, even in a world of tribulation.

Of Taxes and the Tenth Commandment

It may be a commonplace to comment on popular culture’s war on the Ten Commandments, but it merits the effort.  At best they are treated in Hollywood and other secular Zions of pop culture as the Ten Old Fashioned Ideas.  Undeniably, Moses was after all just another one of those old white men, whom many with public microphones wish would fade from the contemporary scene (as long as they keep paying the bills).

Yet there seems to linger in the hearts and minds of most people in America who are not cultural trend setters an enduring if vague respect for Ten Commandment concepts such as the preeminence of God, the duties to parents, abhorrence of murder, the value of marriage covenants, the evils of theft, and that telling the truth is still better than lying.  These are basic concepts that even children have little trouble understanding.

I must confess, however, that as a child I had difficulty understanding the tenth commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17).  “Covet” is not a word much found in a child’s vocabulary, or in anyone else’s for that matter.  It required explaining to me.  Then it was not overly hard to take in as an idea.  I did wonder, though, why it had an exalted place with the other nine commandments.  The gravity of theft, murder, blasphemy, lying, not going to Church on Sunday, and even dishonoring parents I could sense as a child, but why make such a big deal about coveting?  Very bad things happen from breaking those other commandments.  Sure, coveting, as explained to me, led to other sins, such as stealing, murder, lying and the rest, but where was the great evil in the thing itself?  You could go to jail for breaking some of the other Ten Commandments, and you certainly were on the high road to hell if you did.  Coveting might make you feel unhappy or dislike someone who had something you wanted—not good, but was it really so bad?

I have come to learn, with time and experience, that the answer is, Yes, it is very bad.  The Ten Commandments address, first, our relationship with God; second, our relationship with family; and finally our relationship with our neighbors and in the communities where we live.  Coveting is a powerful corrosive acid in community relationships.  It dissolves kindness and respect and love for our fellows, leaving an envy that has hate at its root. 

Indulged in, coveting insidiously works to separate us from those who have what we might want.  One need not act on the coveting, one need not steal, lie, cheat, commit adultery, or engage in other offenses for the wedge of coveting to work its evil within society.  Neighbors become cold, businessmen and workers become self-centered, helping hands become harder to find, envy and jealousy increasingly push compassion and cooperation aside.  The poor hate any richer than they, and those who are better off lose their pity and concern for those whom they might otherwise be quick to help and encourage.

I am not one who looks to our political leaders to be moral leaders, but I do look to them to be virtuous.  Morality must be a fundamental qualification for those to whom we give authority to make, execute, and judge the laws if we want our laws and their administration to be based upon virtue.  We do not and should not derive our morality from these people, but we should expect them to act morally in the exercise of the duties and powers that they derive from the people whom they govern.

It is more than irresponsible, then, that coveting has not only been accepted by President Obama but is in fact advocated for the nation to embrace as the defining element of our economic policy, one that begins with demands for higher taxes on “the rich.”  This national call to covet is dangerous to our community.  Look again at how the evil was described on Mount Sinai, keeping in mind President Obama’s call to soak the rich to support more government:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. (Exodus 20:17)

All sharing in the tax burden is a necessary element of self-government.  Self-government does not work without all of the individual selves in society pitching in fairly.  But how else than a call to covet can we understand President Obama’s “not negotiable” demand that the United States, on the brink of renewed recession and economic trouble for millions, do nothing unless the government first takes ever growing shares out of the pockets of those he calls “the rich”?  He wants their money, and he wants the rest of the nation to covet their money in support of his plans for bigger government. 

The demand cannot be explained on grounds of “fairness” or financial value.  One part of the population is singled out to pay for an outsized share of government spending, including promised subsidies to some of the rest.  The rich, for now defined by the President as those with incomes of $250,000 or more, currently earn 22% of all income but pay 45% of all federal income taxes.  No fairness in raising that share even higher.  But neither would Obama’s plans do much to pay for government budget deficits.  His so-called “Buffett Rule” would drink in some $47 billion more over the next ten years, or just under $5 billion a year.  The federal government, however, is currently spending $4 billion a day more than it collects.  That is, soaking the rich will pay for a little more than one day of the federal deficit.  Not a financial policy that will bridge the government budget gap.

What is going on here, other than a destructive and cynical effort to gain popularity by stirring up the many with envy of the income of a few?  This short-sighted strategy is working to undermine our national community, just as surely as Moses warned 4,000 years ago.  Already it has brought us to a month long national financial emergency, at the very time of Christmas when virtues of generosity, tolerance, kindness, and unity would better occupy the public attention.  The theme of peace on earth and goodwill to men is replaced by a manufactured national crisis over how to pitch class against class with sentiments of envy and hatred led by America’s chief executive.

By the way, I am not aware of any religion that condones coveting.  But even if the fear of God does not make you slow to covet, objective love for the nation as a whole and the integrity of the society should cause you to recoil from a political platform based upon feeding the fires of envy.