There are more areas of influence than these two facets.  Among them are academia, media, church, community, and family.  All of these are VERY powerful forces.  Unfortunately they have been hijacked by the first two.

Academia has been marginalized as impractical.  “It’s all theory.”  Education has been turned into job training—for business.  Our culture no longer seeks education to better itself, but to better its chances in the marketplace and to better its earning potential.  Consequently, we are well-trained but poorly educated.  We seek easy answers and eschew tough questions.  We have lost the art of discussion and debate, and instead seek out “news sources” that validate rather than challenge our opinions.  In order for academia to regain strength, we must value a thinking education, not just job training or certification, as an integral part of the betterment of our culture.

The media have been turned into the business of entertainment; even programs that purport to inform feel they must sensationalize and “play to the audience.”  There are too few media outlets that make us think and give us unbiased information or make us take a hard look at our warts in the mirror.  Instead they distract us from what is really happening and what we must make happen in response.  They make us feel we’re too small to affect the world around us or that the problem lies with someone else.  We must 1) unplug ourselves and seek better sources of information, sources that make us think (books?); and/or 2) become our own media to the people within our circle of influence.

Religion has lost much of its influence in America.  Although more than 90% of Americans believe in “god,” few participate in organized religion, a tragedy in regards to social support systems.  But, thanks to government, churches don’t have to do these things anymore (irony alert).  They don’t have to “lift up the hands which hang down,” “visit the fatherless and widows,” feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick, or go unto the prisoner.  The government does all that for us, right?  And so we lose sight of that other side of humanity, and therefore lose perspective on life itself.  We must take back the role of “pure religion” from the government, because we can care for our neighbor better than they can.

Community is a dead concept to most Americans.  We look to Washington and Wall Street for our needs to be met.  We expect individual solutions from people trying to spit into an anthill from 30,000 feet in the air.  Ironically, the more needs we have locally, the more we look to Washington for solutions.  Fat federal fingers don’t have the dexterity of local people, organizations, and functions.  Some of the best solutions to our most pressing needs are conceived and implemented at the local level.  We should all be looking for ways to solve problems locally and to pull back to the local level as much as possible.

The familyis under heavy stress.  Success in families requires selflessness, absolute commitment, time, and a very thick skin, all of which are in short supply in our culture.  Selfishness, pride, and a lack of integrity lead to unmended rifts, divorce, misprioritization of time, money, and emotional effort, an inability to communicate—all of which disintegrates the foundation of society.  None of the other six areas can compensate for the family.  We must put honor above pride, family above self, and integrity above success.

Only through equalizing these spheres of influence can we achieve the balance we need in our lives.

I just returned from seeing my children perform in a children’s production of A Christmas Carol and I had to write this. It has been on my mind since last Christmas season.

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol occurs the following exchange:

‘Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,’ said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, ‘but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?’

‘It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,’ was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. ‘Look here.’

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

‘Oh, Man! look here! Look, look, down here!’ exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

‘Spirit, are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more.

‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And abide the end!’

‘Have they no refuge or resource?’ cried Scrooge.

‘Are there no prisons?’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ‘Are there no workhouses?’

It is easy to sit back and criticize the government for either not doing enough for those who are in real need or for providing entitlements and creating a portion of society dependent on and enthralled to an entity of force. It’s like “shooting fish in a barrel” to complain that business is “heartless” and seeking profit at the expense of the worker.

Where does the responsibility lay? Is it the purview of religion to make sure there is no Want or Ignorance? Is it the isolated role of the education establishment to assure gaining of knowledge, guaranteeing that there will be No Child Left Behind? Do the specialists in the media have the role of informing, opining, swaying public opinion and in effect telling people how to think?

At whose feet does Dickens lay the problems of Want and Ignorance? At yours. At mine. Are there no institutions to solve the problems? Are there no schools to educate the ignorant? Why is ignorance persistently present? Are there no TV programs, internet sites, radio programs, newspapers? Are there no welfare programs? Are there no church programs to address the issue of want? The problems are yours and mine. The solutions will be found in how you and I see the world and our fellow inhabitants hereon.

How often do we find that we use the excuse that Scrooge does early in the book in an attempt to justify Jacob Marley’s existence on earth: “But you were always a good man of business.”? How often are we too busy, to involved in “working for that which does not satisfy” to recognize what we must be truly about here on this planet? True social leadership requires some degree of the following attitude:

“Oh! Captive, bound and double-ironed, not to know that ages of incessant labor, by immortal creatures, for this earth, must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused!

When we choose to follow the path of statesmanship, social leadership, discipleship, whatever the term, we sign up for the burden described above. We understand that our responsibility is profound and hard. We don’t cast blame on others for the problems of society; we accept them whole-heartedly as our own and understand that only through our actions can these “children of Mankind”, Want and Ignorance, be transformed by lovingly nourishing each other and sowing knowledge and truth.

Action Step: Seek out those opportunities this year that will allow you to take responsibility for your true business. Remember: “Mankind [is our] business. The common welfare [is our] business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence [are all our] business. The dealings of [our trades are] but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of [our] business!”

The book cites Allan Bloom’s assertion that America’s national books through its first 150 years were the “Declaration of Independence” and the Bible.  But somehow in the 1950s and 60s familiarity with these national books dropped off dramatically.  The problem this causes is immense—we no longer have these essential works as the foundation of our culture.  This begs the question: What has replaced them?

It seems that we don’t have any national books anymore.  What books do almost all Americans read in common?  I postulate that our new national books are not books at all, but are in fact movies and television.  Yes, it’s scary, but I think it’s true.  We watch them, quote them, discuss them in our social gatherings and at the water cooler.  Do we quote the Bible?  I think we, as a nation, quote the Bible very frequently, but we don’t know we’re doing it.  Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee used a lot of Biblical allusions, but he confused a lot of people with them because of our general biblical ignorance in America.

On the other hand, quotes from recent or classic movies permeate our daily language.  “Make him an offer he can’t refuse,” “Luke, I am your father,” “Tina, ya fat lard!”  We can give a detailed description of Jim and Pam’s courtship, but not Isaac and Rebecca’s faith-building first encounter.  We can name all the contestants on American Idol, but not half of the twelve tribes of Israel.  We quote advice given by Oprah, Dr. Phil, or Rush Limbaugh, but we don’t know the Sermon on the Mount—the best “advice” we could ever have for a happy life.  We can name more of the last 12 Heisman Trophy winners than we can the original twelve apostles.

So what?  What if we don’t all read the same books?  Can’t we all just read good books, or even see good movies that reaffirm our sense of right and wrong?  Yes, we could, if we talked about them that way.  But we don’t.  Instead of getting into the details of the morals taught in movies or TV shows, we call them “a triumph of the human spirit” or “a feel-good movie.”  Can you imagine a co-worker coming up to you and saying, “Y’know, I was reading in Genesis the other day about Abraham, and I was wondering what he was thinking as he took Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him, knowing that his own parents had tried to offer Abraham as a sacrifice when he was young.  He must have had some real certainty of his commandment from God”?  I can’t.

What do we do about it?  Well, first we return to our national books.  When was the last time you read the “Declaration?”  Have you read the entire Bible (I know I haven’t) or your scripture?  Second, we need to move the current situation in the right direction.  We need to talk about those “triumph of the human spirit” movies in terms of right and wrong, good choices and bad.  What are the choices characters must make?  Why do they choose the way they do, and what are the results?  This is most important for children, especially when movies are not as explicitly didactic as Little House on the Prairie was (it’s also a good chance to talk to our kids and to give them a better understanding of our own values, our “family books”).

The concept of a national book is so extremely important.  It is a gathering place for the souls of our people.  Unfortunately, we as a nation have set our books down and not picked them up again.  It’s time to do so—in fact it’s past time.  Let’s do it today.