A Solution to Poverty?

In the past year my view of global poverty has changed dramatically. It all began when I read the book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan. The book later became central to my online course in cultural transformation, and I added insights gained from research into the micro-credit revolution. So, what big new thing have I discovered?

My big new idea began from the first pages of the book. Dr. Prahalad begins with what should be obvious, but isn't. The poor are people too, with all the aspirations and capabilities of adult human beings. They are, in fact, as clever and in many ways, more resourceful than the rest of us. They have to be to survive. We need to begin to treat them this way.

In point of fact, we either patronize them or denigrate them. They are not helpless nor are they lazy. They will do whatever it takes to stay alive and care for their families. Because so many are so poor, they have no access to many of the things we take for granted such as a bank account, licenses, and permits. Most of them face deep prejudice and are considered outcasts or aliens. They have no choice but to operate outside the formal regulations of the law and the economy. They build their homes/shelters out of whatever materials are available, they drink whatever water they have access to, and they basically live hand to mouth.

It is also important to realize that the vast majority (2/3rd's) of the world's population lives on less than $1,500.00 per year, and as many as 3 billion people live on less than $2 per day. The people I described above, who live on one or two meals a day, and who are just surviving make up 1/2 of the world's population. Those numbers are staggering, and they make our complaints about recession and the shrinking middle class sound petty and petulant.

The good news is that something is being done about it. The bad news is that up until the last few decades not much of it was very effective. The UN, the World Bank, and countless NGO's poured billions of dollars into the economies of the developing world, only to have most of the money stolen or given to grandiose infrastructure projects that helped the political leadership but did nothing to help the poor. Even those programs that directly targeted poor communities failed because of their patronizing approach. As Dr. Prahalad explained, these programs viewed, "The poor are wards of the state." (p. xi, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid) In other words, bureaucratic solutions will never solve personal problems, and poverty is extremely personal.

The problem of third world poverty is being addressed in another way by a different group of leaders. These leaders are taking the more personal approach and the results are amazing. As one of my new heroine's, Ingrid Munro explained it, the poor can not be helped by charity. Charity keeps people poor because it communicates that they cannot help themselves and must live in dependence upon their benefactors. Ingrid Munro's solution has been to give the poor a ladder by which they may climb out of poverty by their own efforts. The ladder has several rungs. It begins with community and relationship that encourages and provides accountability. Everywhere that microcredit has succeeded it is built upon a foundation of small community based groups. The next rung is the development of the personal disciplines of saving and delayed gratification. Once a person has learned to save, they are helped to develop a business/entrepreneurial plan. Finally, the member is enabled to take out a small loan to fund their plan.

Ingrid and the members continued to support one another, to help one another, and to speak into each other's lives. In just 15 years, her organization has helped lift 130,000 former beggars and thieves out of poverty.

This, then, is my new paradigm. We must not patronize the poor. We must treat them as viable and capable adults. They need training, encouragement to eliminate wasteful and destructive habits (drinking, drugs, gambling, etc.), and personal support for the positive habits of saving and paying back the microcredit loans or for finding and keeping a job.

One of the reasons that government is so ineffective in this process is that it is inately impersonal. Microcredit, wherever it is practiced in the world, is built on the foundation of small groups with a coach or mentor that connects the group to the lending institution and provides the instruction and guidance that makes the group successful. The larger the governing body, the less capable it is of this level of community and personal involvement. Even in the U.S. this small group and community based approach to microcredit and microenterprise is showing remarkable benefit. There is an organization in Seattle that is doing amazing things in helping people receive the type of coaching, encouragement, and accountability to climb the ladder out of poverty.

I am actually reluctant to call this a "new" understanding because it so confirms by own view of personal and Christian responsibility. It is new however in that it involves real programs that have originated in the last 30 years that are making a tremendous difference in people's lives around the world. As we enter a new year, may we look for ways to help or to become involved in some of these amazing efforts to lift the poorest people of the world out of unimaginable poverty. There are any number of Christian organizations that are involved in these efforts that are worthy of our support, these organizations include World Vision, Step Ahead, and the Chalmers Group. May God show us ways to get personally involved in these kinds of life changing activities.

Have a happy and blessed New Year.

On Steven Hawkings New Claim

I consider Steven Hawkings one of the most remarkable men of our generation. He is a medical miracle, having survived with Lou Gerig's disease for over 40 years. In spite of his condition, he is regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist of our time, and has been compared with Albert Einstein. He earned this reputation because of his description and explanation of black holes.

One of the reasons that we are familiar with his name and career is that he is also a popular writer. He has taken his theories and sought to explain them to the general public by writing two significant books for the mass market. In doing so, he has sought to give a non-supernatural explanation for the cosmos.

In his first book, he attempted to explain the current theory of the origin of the universe called the Singularity. The Singularity means the universe we live in is not eternal, and this has serious metaphysical and theological implications. Rober Jastrow's famous quote about science confirming theology comes to mind. In order to explain the fact that our universe is not eternal and yet could still be the result of purely natural causes, Hawkings had to resort to quantum theory. He concedes that before the Singularity (Big Bang) nothing of this universe existed. His claim is that the quantum level of negative energy was exactly equal to the quantum level of positive energy thus producing zero actual energy. This condition of "zero" matter/energy had to have existed for an eternity of past time until, as some cosmologists try to explain it, this state was disturbed by a "quantum fluctuation" that destroyed the balance and produced the Big Bang.

Without getting too deeply in over our heads, it is important that we apply some simple logic to these questions. J.P. Moreland has pointed out that "nothing" is no thing, it is not positive and negative energy states that cancel each other out. If "nothingness" ever were the condition of the universe, then we wouldn't be here. You can't get something from nothing.

Hawkings is using a high degree of theoretical speculation in his claim, for which there are some serious unanswered questions. First, "where" was this massive amount of energy located, and how did it break through to literally create our universe? Second is the problem of equillibrium. If the "stuff" of the universe has existed forever, as naturalism requires, then it long ago reached a state of equillibrium (we're dealing with eternity remember). Equillibrium means nothing happens unless something from the outside acts upon it. How this something acted and/or what caused it is the significant dilemma that naturalism faces in explaining the origin of the universe.

In his latest book, Hawkings has gone evern futher, based on string theory, he stated that the existence of gravity provides the capacity for the universe to create itself. In other words, he is assuming that gravity exists as the ordering principle for the emergence of a universe capable of sustaining life as we know it. In terms of the current theories of galaxy formation, etc. such a claim makes sense in describing our sun and even planet earth. I have to assume that he and other naturalistic thinkers feel that if they can find an explanation for the development of the chemical chart and the planets they have done their job because evolution takes over from that point.

As someone who doesn't accept the "theory" of evolution, I find that assumption more of a leap of faith than a fact of science. The existence of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen do not DNA or life make, and gravity has no capacity to change that fact. It is at this level, the crucial level of organization from non-living matter to life that I found most outrageous in his claim. To be fair to him, he is making the assumption that I described in the last paragraph. He is assuming that the development of life is "automatic" given the pre-historic conditions on earth and that evolution is a self-evident fact of nature.

The level of complexity is still, and will continue to be, the problem for these naturalistic theories. I often think of Stephen J. Gould's attempt to make the comparison between the chance development of life and winning the lottery. Such a comparison would work if there were just one chance event that had to take place to produce life as we know it, but there are billions of events (at least) for which the chance explanation completely breaks down. We can be lucky once or twice or even ten times, but not billions of times.

While Stephen Hawkings is a brilliant theoretical physicist, his explanation of the origin of the universe needs to be taken for what it is, an attempt to provide a naturalistic explanation for the universe. As such, it faces the same problems as all naturalistic explantions, the universe is too complex to be accidental. While gravity is a remarkable force, it has no capacity to take the place of our Creator.

How Did We Get into This Mess?

With the mid-term elections soon to be over and a new set of players involved in setting the direction for our country, it is important that we figure out what the real problems are that must be solved. One of the problems with politics is that both the explanation for problems and the proposed solutions become standardized by political ideology. Thus, the democrats say it's all the fault of greedy corporations and the republicans blame big government liberals. Further, these one-size-fits-all approaches develop around specific issues whether it is the approach to education reform or health care.

Our problems are much too complex to be so simply defined and solved. One of the reasons that none of our approaches to improving education have made much of a difference in test scores and our standing in the world is that we have not understood the cultural forces that have had a greater influence on our children than anything the Department of Education is capable of doing with programs or policies. We have legislated according to political sound bites and then we wonder why our laws have so little effect on the serious long-term problems we face.

I have wanted to write an overview of our present situation from my own, Christian and biblically instructed point of view for some time. This election is about economics so I want to start there.

First of all, our employment and financial problems have not sprung up in the last 10 years as the president and his party have claimed. George W. Bush and the republicans are not the sole source of the massive budget deficit or the shipping of American jobs overseas. We have been Keynesians for a very long time, seeking to drive economic growth by fiscal stimulus and inflation. We forget that cars used to cost $5,000.00 and homes $50,000.00 just 40 years ago. Even though wages and salaries were much lower than today, it was possible, because of a much lower cost of living for nearly every family to have a single bread winner. Inflation has so driven up the cost of living in our society that now both husband and wife must work just to make ends meet.

But inflation is not just the rise in prices and wages (with inflation, people needed raises just to keep up with the cost of living), inflation affects product quality and methods of finance. Electric drills for the home handyman used to be made entirely of metal. Black & Decker revolutionized the field by only using metal where it was needed for wear and durability, everything else they made of plastic. Engineers have been working for decades at taking cost out of products while still maintaining product value. Technology has played a major role in this process both in the development of materials and in using computers and robots in the manufacturing process. But this has resulted in a reduction in the number of people required to make and assemble these products. This is as much of a factor in the loss of jobs as outsourcing. All this was required in order to remain competitive in the marketplace and to keep the price they must charge for their products as low as possible while still making a reasonable profit.

American (and global) industry have a remarkable track record when it comes to innovation. From my background in quality assurance I can tell you that they have developed products that are lighter, stronger, and more reliable than the products sold just 40 years ago. Without these advances in product development and manufacturing our cost of living would be unimaginably higher than it is today. There have been other benefits as well. The fuel efficiency of our cars have improved and the strength, weight, and durability of tools and materials have increased significantly.

But the need to control product costs produced serious problems for society. First, one of the largest expense items in manufacturing is the cost of labor, therefore engineers worked very hard for many years developing machines and methods for eliminating the number of people required to make the products we buy. What this has meant is that machine shops and factories hire far fewer people than they did just a few decades ago. In addition, outsourcing (purchasing parts and materials from overseas) has been going on for decades. Foreign made parts are much less expensive because of lower labor and materials costs. And foreign made parts mean less jobs available for American workers.

Let me try to explain outsourcing from the context of something I know about personally; snommobiles. The first snowmobiles made in the 1960's all had American made engines. As the sport advanced snowmobile manufacturers began looking outside the U.S. for lighter, more powerful engines. They turned to the Japanese motorcycle companies because they had already developed cast aluminum engines with hard plated cylinder walls for durability. No American manufacturers could compete with the price, performance, and durability of these engines, and just about every snowmobile manufacturer in the world bought their engines from Japan.

Like it or not, we live in a global marketplace and companies today are searching the entire world for the best materials and products. In order for us in the United States to see our economy grow, we must work hard to maintain our innovative edge. It's really is all about innovation. Those companies that make the best products for the lowest price where ever they are in the world will have the competitive advantage. This is why Toyota and not GM sells the most cars in the world. This is why Sony, Samsung, and Vizio sell far more television sets than RCA or Zenith (the best sellers when I was a kid).

The same principle applies on the personal level. The main reason the trade union movement has failed in the private sector is that they stifle personal initiative and advancement. The job market today requires people who already possess knowledge and skills necessary for the position. In addition, they must be people who are capable of learning and adapting to the advances that are inevitable today. The most successful will be those who are capable of developing new methods, new approaches, or even new products.

What does this mean going forward? It means we must work to increase our competetiveness in the global economy. We need to lower our corporate tax rate, we must reduce capital gains tax rates to enable investment. We must pass the important trade agreements that await our approval. Finally, we must expand oil exploration and other means of increasing our access to the energy available to us here in America to reduce our energy costs and improve the prospects for the growth of our economy.

The question will be, can our new congress do anything to make any of these changes possible? To be honest, government at whatever level is not the answer. Innovation and the remarkable dynamism of the free market have always been the engine that pulls us out of these economic doldrums. I know it is trite, but the best thing that government can do for business is to get out of the way.

"Fixing" our Economy

The crucial question for the next year is how do we achieve economic recovery. The current administration has been telling us for some time that we are already in recovery, and that if we are just patient and willing to re-elect their party, we will see the benefits of their policies. The problem is there are no real signs of recovery, with unemployment still very high and the housing market abysmally low. What concerns me most is that I don't see any "engine" of recovery.

In the past, certain key industries have pulled us out of recessions. Whether it was the auto industry, personal computers and the internet, or the housing market, the recession ended when these products and services became ultra attractive due to pricing, innovation, and low interest rates. All of those drivers are unavailable this time; they are all subject to the same lack of demand that plagues the rest of the economy. So what will pull us out of this mess?


According to the President and his progressive advisors, the drivers of recovery are green jobs and re-building infrastructure. Many to the left of the President, want him to go further and establish a new WPA of government building and employment projects. What they don't realize is that much has changed since the 1930's; the restrictions, work rules, and environmental regulations of today prevent even the government from hiring people off the street to build dams, bridges, and libraries. What used to take a few months to plan and initiate now takes years. The President admitted as much when he declared, "there are no shovel-ready projects." He is right. Even the progressive agenda is subject to the crisis of a bloated government.

So what about green jobs - wind, solar, renewable energy? If we are willing to be honest, we will have to admit that these alternatives to coal and petroleum are not yet viable. The only way that we can go to these options is through subsidies. We have been subsidizing wind generation and solar power since the late 70's with little or nothing to show for it. After decades of government subsidy, we spent six billion dollars to enable American ethanol production and to prevent sugarcane ethanol from being imported from Brazil. In other words, the idea that these "green" industries may be drivers of growth in our economy is not even a pipe dream, it is a complete fantasy.

The central question is how do we promote growth? In my opinion, government is the last group that should be attempting to answer that question. Politicians are under the influence of special interests and incapable of seeing what really needs to be done to bring the economy back to health. I would point to two examples: the cutting off of water for irrigation in California to protect the delta smelt and the takeover of GM and Chrysler. It is a political talking point, but true none-the-less; government needs to get out of the way for business to grow.

Government gets out of the way by reducing the corporate income tax, by approving the various free trade agreements that are held up by the special interests, by reducing (not increasing as planned) the capital gains tax, and adopting any number of other business-friendly policies that would release the engines of investment and entrepreneurship that enable the economy to grow. The next engine of growth is probably out there, but the government will never find it. The free market will take it forward as it did the auto industry, the internet, and the housing boom. The recent success of Apple's I-phone and I-pad show the amazing capacity for innovation in American industry. It is this kind of creative development that gives us a sense of optimism about the prospects for growth.

If we look at the difference between the economic conditions in Texas and California, we see the advantages of conservative policies over progressive policies. Texas is a low tax, business friendly, tort reform state. Over half of all the jobs created in the private sector in the last six months (which the President has alluded to as a sign of the recovery) were created in one state: Texas. While California is losing population as a consequence of its high taxes and restrictive regulations, Texas is the fastest growing state in the union. California has an unemployment rate of 12%, while Texas is at 8.4%.

With the mid-term elections in two weeks, we need to vote for those leaders who will adopt the policies that are working in Texas and reject the policies that had such a disastrous impact on California or Michigan or New York.

Even if the Republicans take control of congress, I do not see a dramatic change in our economy. We face so many difficult challenges and a divided government will make it even more difficult to get legislation written and passed. Nor do I see President Obama making the kind of shift to the center that saved Bill Clinton's presidency in 1994. (Here's irony for you. The democrats brag about the budget surplus and strong economy under Bill Clinton, but it wasn't progressive policies that produced that surplus, it was the conservative policies he adopted after '94.)

It is important that you vote on November 2. Much is at stake in this election.

Let me also say that in these uncertain times we must be Habakkuk Christians. The housing crisis is not going away, and employment will be weak for some time to come. We can expect to be facing a struggling economy for some time. Our hope rests not in our visible means of support, our job or bank account, but in the faithfulness of our God, who gave Himself for us and promised to never leave us or forsake us. Now is the time for us to live by faith and not by sight, and to reveal a hope that cannot be shaken by any of the challenges of our uncertain economy.

Who was Colbert mocking?

At the risk of making a mountain of a molehill, I am about to air my concerns about Stephen Colbert's testimony in character before the congressional hearing on immigration reform. His performance was a masterful expression of the irreverence and cynicism that plagues so much of our popular culture. Imagine it, a well know comedian is invited to testify before congress on an important public policy question, and he uses the opportunity to both enhance his own hunger for publicity and to mock the powers that be.

If I may unpack the significance of the event, Colbert is an expression of the modern view of events and institutions. He is first of all mocking formality and the idea that an institution should be respected and taken seriously. While this has been happening for a long time, I have never seen it taken to the level of dis-respecting the United States congress. It is one thing to wear blue jeans and a baseball cap to school or to church, it is another to treat a congressional hearing as a comedic opportunity. This takes the nihilism of this generation to a new level.

But there is more to mocking than dis-respect, it is an expression of denial. It is saying that what you stand for is not good nor true, it is evil and wrong. Mockery is not just opposition to a point of view, it is the attempt to demolish it. It doesn't just oppose what it mocks, it despises it.

Then the question becomes, what does Colbert despise. Well, his character is patterned after Bill O'Reilly and the conservative view point of Fox News. This is what he is really mocking and this is what he despises. The point is not to defend O'Reilly (he can take of himself pretty well) or Fox News, it is to defend the conservative values that they alone in the media support. It is also to raise concern about the rejectionist approach in our political discourse. We don't even argue anymore, we deny and denigrate. There is only one thing that can come next, repression and persecution of those who hold contrary views. (I am quite concerned about the rhetoric directed at Evangelical Christians in some circles. We are being demonized, and the stage is being set for the public approval of the repression and persecution of Christians.)

So, let's talk about what the Bible says about mockery and those who practice it. Mocking is actually the end point of a progression. Psalm 1 warns us to avoid walking "in the counsel of the wicked." In other words it tells us to avoid taking the bad advice that comes from those who reject sound moral principles. Next, we are warned to avoid standing "in the path of sinners." A path is a track worn by repeated use, and a sinner is one who habitually sins. Notice that this condition is less mobile and more entrenched than the first. The first is innocent, looking for guidance on life decisions, the second has already made a number of choices and has taken a position of identification, he is a sinner. But the final stage brings us to the place of the "scoffer" (mocker). This is the ultimate expression of rebellion against God and goodness. It is the person sitting "in the seat of the scoffer." This person is completely immobile, he cannot move and thus he cannot change. He is totally dedicated to his position, as if his life depended on it. Whatever he has given himself to now has him completely in its grip and he will defend it to the death.

Sitting in the ancient world was also seen as taking a position of authority. A scoffer speaks as if he has the final word and that only a fool would disagree with him. But it is all bravado, they are mocking the true and the good, because the evil has them completely in its grip.

The lesson of Psalm 1 for us is that we should never start down the road that begins with the false wisdom that predominates in our hedonistic, self-centered culture. Because it will take us to the place where sin is habitual and very difficult to overcome. And, if we aren't careful can lead us to the place where we will be literally addicted to sin, and couldn't let it go even if we wanted to.

How much better to follow David's advice in the second half of the Psalm, to delight in the Torah (teachings) of God and to meditate upon them day and night. Here we find wisdom for our daily choices. Here we find a path that leads to life and ultimately to Jesus for He is life. Here we find a place of true conviction and authority based upon the proven certainty of God's word and ways.

I feel truly sorry for the Stephen Colberts of the world. I certainly don't know any of the details of his life, nor can I stand as judge over him. Only God knows his heart. But his choice to mock things he doesn't fully understand or appreciate such as the core conservative moral vaues of American society do tell us where much of the popular culture that he represents stands or rather sits.

Are we facing a sea change election?

The story of the twentieth century in America has been the influence of progressive ideology on our government and society. The democratic party, at least the liberal wing of the party, calls itself "progressive." But we must make a distinction between what I am referring to as progressive ideology and modern American liberalism.

Progressive ideology has been in the driver's seat of our government and politics from at least the 1940's. Both political parties have operated from its basic assumptions for the last 70 years, and it has brought us to the current economic mess we are facing today.

Progressive ideology is a product of the Industrial Revolution and is concerned about three things; the "equitable" distribution of income within a given society (no extremes of wealth or poverty), a scientific management of society and the economy to achieve important social ends (universal access to health care, proper nutrition for all, old age security, etc.), and the continual pursuit of "moral progress" (the reduction of racial prejudice, an increased concern for the environment, the pursuit of a more humane treatment of prisoners, etc.).

These three goals were front and center in the administrations of Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and saw their greatest advance under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Progressive ideology was certainly well intentioned, and has produced many of the values and institutions that we take for granted today and that bring great benefit to our lives. Both parties have endorsed and advanced the progressive agenda, and many of its fundamental institutions such as social security, federally governed public education, and medicare/medicaid are "third rail" issues that cannot be touched for fear of the political backlash.

On the other side of this equation, stands some serious unintended consequences to this attempt to create an improved society. Included in this is the massive growth in the size and reach of the federal government, with unsustainable deficits and a gigantic inventory of unfulfilled promises. We are failing at the education of our children, our entitlement regime is breaking down, we just saw a dramatic increase in the percentage of Americans below the poverty line, and we see a reduction in our economic competitiveness.

All of these things are adding up to a serious questioning of all the assumptions of the progressive ideology. When the Tea Party candidates talk about a return to the constitution and to federalism (more power returned to the individual states), this is exactly what is going on. It seems to me that we are at the beginning of a sea change in the way we view the federal government and how it operates. The question will be, do we have the political will and wisdom to restore the freedoms coupled with the sense of individual responsibility that made America so successful?

At this point, it is very important that we, the American voters, understand that this is what it is going on. We have the chance, with this election, to begin to bring America back from the brink of bankruptcy and to start down a long road of reforming many of the basic institutions of our society in order to make them a reflection of our constitutional government. A government, by the way, that has provided more abundance and freedom to all classes of people than any other government in history.

The United States is not the first to pull back from the financial brink. Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher went through a dramatic transition that privatized whole industries and reduced the power of labor unions throughout the country. Many of the European nations are taking dramatic steps to reduce government deficits and reduce entitlements. They have been forced to by economic reality, a reality that is just now beginning to become apparent to the American people. It is no accident that we presently have the second highest corporate income tax in the world (Only Japan exceeds ours and who wants to imitate Japan right now?).

Our goal in the next two elections (2010 & 2012), must be to substantially reduce the size and reach of the federal government. We must next have an intelligent conversation about reducing the long term costs of entitlements and discovering a way to make them sustainable for the long run. My other hope is that the Tea Party movement will have some influence on the debate over education in America. The best case scenario would be much greater local control and parental involvement in a meaningful way that includes vouchers and school choice.

My hope is that this truly is a watershed moment for American society, and not just a short lived conservative backlash against a struggling economy. The liberal narrative about the Tea Party is that it is just a lot of old white people afraid of losing their medicare. There are two things about the Tea Party that should give us all hope for the future, and of which the liberal media is either unaware or mis-understands. The Tea Party is focused on restoring constitutional government to the United States, and more than any movement before it, is committed to reducing the size and cost of government. If we don't appreciate what they are trying to accomplish, our children and grandchildren certainly will.

The Cut Flower Society

One of the most memorable analogies used to describe modern Western culture is the description, "the cut flower society." I'm not sure who first used the metaphor, but it is a brilliantly accurate description of our civilization. The West took mankind down a path toward freedom of opportunity, racial and gender equality, and economic prosperity that is unprecedented in human history. It shouldn't be overstated, our societies were not perfect, but our core values and our record of moral and social progress was very impressive when compared to previous civilizations.

The strength and vitality of our society was connected to the values and worldview of its people and its worldview and values were shaped by the Judeo-Christian faiths. As we passed through the Enlightenment we rejected the rationale of the Judeo-Christian faith and we cut off the the strength and vitality of those core values. The result has been the fading of the glory of our civilization.

For example, we blame the high dropout rate and poor performance of students in our public education system on either inadequate funding (Liberal) or poor performing teachers protected by the teacher's unions (conservative). To be honest, the problem is way more complicated than either of those political slogans. The decay of our educational system is part of the moral and personal degeneration afflicting our popular culture, which can be directly attributed to our rejection of many of the Judeo-Christian values that shaped our civilization. Moral relativism doesn't go very far in encouraging our children to pay attention to their teachers and work hard on their studies. What we see in much of the youth culture of today is a rejection of any serious pursuit in life and thought. We are instead immersed in the world of "Jackass the Movie," Brittany Spears, and Lady Gaga. We can trace the decreasing vitality of our culture by the steady decline in SAT scores in the past 50 years.

We can trace a similar degeneration in the percentage of marriages that end in divorce or in the percentage of children born to unwed mothers. We are quite simply, as a society, moving in the wrong direction.

One of the central principles of the Enlightenment was the belief in progress. This belief was based on the marked improvement in social conditions that had taken place in the past 200 years in Europe. These improvements included the outlawing of slavery, prison reform, universal education, and the beginnings of women's sufferage. The process was appropriately described as "moral progress." What the people of the Enlightenment didn't understand is that all of those advances were the result of Christian influence and leadership. William Wilberforce and other English Evangelicals were the driving force behind the outlawing of slavery in Great Britain, as Charles Finney was a leader in the abolitionist movement in America. Prison reform in England was a direct consequence of the Wesleyan Revival, and Women's Sufferage in America was led by Evangelical women.

After the devastation of the two world wars and the rejection of Enlightenment optimism by most modern philosophers, the idea of moral progess was largely abandoned. This abandonment is part of the cut flower phenomenon, and today we see a steady decline in moral values and behavior.

Which brings me to the issue that inspired this post. The New Yorker magazine had an article some weeks ago now, on delayed adulthood. They cited studies that reveal that young adults today are having a hard time making the shift from adolescence to full adult responsibility. They have toyed with creating a new "life-stage." (Just as "adolescence" was added to our vocabulary in the late twentieth century.) This article wanted to call it "emerging adulthood," and implied it could consume much of a person's 20's.

But what is it, really, I see it as the prolonging of adolescence (which was a prolonging of childhood), both were part of the moral decline that is part of the "cut flower" phenomenon. In other words, our society has become increasingly bad at preparing our children for adult responsibility. We are prolonging childhood (Bar Mitzvah is at 13, that is when a Jewish boy was considered a man.), first from the early teens to the early 20's and now all the way out to the early 30's. This reality is most pronounced in men and it does not bode well for the future of our society.

While this makes another case for the need for a spiritual awakening in America and the West, it also calls us to "Seek the Lord while He may be found." We need to re-connect our own lives into the Vine so that He can work out His grace in our lives. Society may be a dying flower, but we can be new and fresh and blooming as we discover the life and joy that are found in living close to Jesus.