LESSON 6 IDOLS WE NEVER KNEW WE HAD— POLITICS What’s the main problem with the world? Think carefully. If you suggest that something other than sin is the main problem with the world, you’ll almost inevitably end up falsely asserting that something not inherently bad is, in fact, evil. Furthermore, if you insinuate that something other than Jesus is the answer to the world’s problem, you’ll end up foolishly “idolizing” something that is not inherently good. For many people, this is the case when it comes to political ideology. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see how a good thing, like patriotism, if turned into an ultimate thing (that is, idolized), can turn into racism and imperialism. It really wasn’t that long ago that the Western world had fairly high hopes for what was then called scientific socialism. However, a quick glance at the Fascist, Nazi, and major Communist movements of the 20th century will show you how corrupt such systems can become. Upon the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, seen as a symbolic collapse of socialism, the world mostly came to a collective conclusion that free market capitalism was the solution—perhaps the thing that can end hunger, poverty, injustice, and most of the other world problems. Interestingly, in Adam Smith’s classic of economics, The Wealth of Nations, he refers to the free market as a nearly deified “invisible hand” that guides people to act in ways that are best for the benefit of society. Giving an ideology that kind of credit— that it compels people to do the right thing for others, outside of connection with God—seems to attribute a divine power to something that doesn’t truly have that power; it idolizes it. Upon the housing market crash and global recession that began in 2008—driven, at least in part, by greed—we caught more than a glimpse that a free market is perhaps not the answer to all financial problems. Free market societies also can collapse upon corruption. Additionally, communal societies can thrive.
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