Despite decades of 'affirmative action', a disproportionate number of favored minorities go on to fail school and end up in jail. The percentage of people below the poverty line has wobbled within the same margin since the 1950's, despite increasingly massive government programs meant to end poverty. Despite legalized abortion-on-demand supposedly preventing child abuse due to unwanted pregnancy, deaths due to child abuse have been on an upward trend for decades. Everywhere liberalism has been tried, it has not only failed, but done so hugely. Many people who are drawn to liberalism are drawn, not to the failure, but to the promise. Liberalism promises utopia on earth, something which Christian Conservatism cannot. Why does Liberalism fail?
What is liberalism? There are many quick and pithy definitions, but none of them can quite encompass it, because liberalism, like so many worldviews, is complex and a simple definition will not adequately describe a complex system. This is my definition: Liberalism is a worldview that begins with atheism and secular humanism. Now I'm sure everyone's heard the old "liberals are atheists" rag and immediately dismissed it because, hey, lots of liberals are not atheists at all. However, many are agnostics, or they follow a 'buffet style' version of a religion that does not require them to go against any of their liberal beliefs. Liberalism quite simply works in a way that is always as close as it can get to being diametrically opposed to the principles in the Bible. Like the Ancient Romans, it permits any other religion so long as it is subordinated.
Liberalism becomes a slightly different creature depending on the venue in which you find it. In economics, it becomes socialism. In matters of personal freedom and responsibility, it becomes fascism. In the family, it becomes feminism. (I refer to the LAF description of feminism as it was overtaken by card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the 30's, not the very earliest stirrings of women seeking God-given rights and responsibilities in the Victorian Era.) Each time, whenever it has put its pet projects into effect, they have failed, usually miserably. Why?
The answer is because Liberalism fights against the ideas and beliefs best embodied in the Bible.
Now why the Bible? Am I some kind of nut? Why would Christianity be so big and strong and good that going against its precepts and lessons results in failure? Well, let me explain and qualify some of my statements. Many religions and belief systems are derived at least in part from the Bible, or the same principles are derived independently. If you follow the financial pointers in the Koran, for example, you will do well. However, those pointers were found first in the Bible. When other cultures do well, you will find that they are following Biblical principles, whether they know it or not.
Why the Bible and why Christianity? Because it is true.
The Bible is much more than just the long version of the Sinner's Prayer. It is a manual for the human condition written ultimately by the God who created us. As the inventor is ultimately the last word on how his invention was designed to operate, God knows best how we were designed to live. When we go outside that design, we run into trouble naturally and normally, not because God hates us or doesn't want us to have fun, but because He designed us to have fun in different ways and to find our pleasure in other things.
If you have always looked to the Bible for spiritual matters only, I would like to invite you to look at it again this year as a human manual in which you can discover details about how you were designed to live. I would like to especially recommend a thoughtful read of Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Romans, and both epistles of Timothy. You may come away from it with a new appreciation of the human condition... and a better understanding of why the principles of liberalism, when applied to it, will always fail.
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