Crisis? and the nature of God

I think there is no denying that we are in some tough times right now, although the media often blows this way out of proportion. Yes, unemployment is on the rise, some very large companies are in some pretty bad shape, but this is NOT the great depression that the media would have you believe it is. Unemployment is not at 20%, a wheel-barrow money still purchases much much more than 1 loaf of bread, and Americans are NOT standing in soup lines.

However, this is a bit of a problem that could last for a long time depending on the spending choices of the administration, which up to this point have been anything but hopeful.

The problem, I think, is a problem of idolotry. As a people, who/what has become our god? Becaue of the pluralism of American culture, there are as many gods as there are people, but I think that largely, money or more specifically, Credit, has become our god. Now, I'm not enough of a historian to know when this all started, but I suspect that sometime after the Great Depression (after WWII), in a booming American economy, Credit became widely available to the masses. All the WWII boys coming home to thier sweethearts and wanting to build families had access to the new GI Bill which not only provided funds for education but also gave veterans access to loans to build new homes or start new businesses. Don't misunderstand, this really helped the returning vets and the good economic times made it possible to fund this (rightly or wrongly). But I wonder if this massive loaning system replaced conventional wisdom with social wisdom; that is, I wonder if it replaced debt-free life with credit-based life. I can't speak authoritatively on the issue, so I can only rely on personal experience with people of that generation and I must conclude that the WWII generation certainly did not live for debt. In fact, it was Grandfather's wisdom that warned against taking out loans for things and against the dangers of credit cards. So how did credit become such a big deal?

I suspect housing is the root. Here is a brief history of the government's involvement in housing borrowed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Housing_and_Urban_Development:

--July 1947 - The Housing and Home Finance Agency established
--July 1949 - The Housing Act of 1949 is enacted to help eradicate slums and promote redevelopment
--September 1959 - The Housing Act of 1959 allows funds for elderly housing
--September 1965 - HUD is created as a cabinet level agency by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act
--April 1968 - The Fair Housing Act is made to ban discrimination in housing
--August 1969 - The Brooke Amendment establishes that low income families only pay no more than 25 percent of their income for rent
--August 1974 - Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 allows community development block grants and help for urban homesteading
--October 1977 - The Housing and Community Act of 1977 sets up Urban Development Grants and continues elderly and handicapped assistance
--July 1987 - The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act gives help to communities to deal with homelessness
--February 1988 - The Housing and Community Development Act provides for the sale of public housing to resident management corporations
--October 1992 - The HOPE VI program starts to revitalise public housing and how it works
--October 1992 - The Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 codifies within its language the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 that creates the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, and mandates HUD to set goals for lower income and underserved housing areas for the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
--March 1996 - The Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act give public housing authorities the tools to screen out and evict residents who might endanger other existing residents due to substance abuse and criminal behavior
--October 1998 - Government laws are proposed which would allow local housing authorities to open up more public housing to the middle class
--November 2007 – HUD initiates program providing seller concessions to buyers of HUD homes, allowing them to use down payment of $100

Of course all of these are an enrochemnt upon the private market, but the one's I've put in bold have been, I think, the most damaging. Some of them gave the government too much control over private property but others dictated how much people will pay for housing! Especially terrible was the October 1992 entry of that set up the GSEs (Goverment-Subsidized Enterprise) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and MANDATED these GSEs set goals as to what percentage of their loans (assets) should be signed to sub-prime candidates. With Loans and CREDIT so easy to obtain, housing prices inflated under an artificial bubble because of government involvement. The inflated housing prices opened the doors for lenders to give 2nd mortgages which allowed home-owners to borrow against the new equity that was growing into the houses through inflated prices.

So I'm not sure how it started, but this trying economic time is how it ended. I told you all this to hopefully prepare you for the idea that with all the credit all over the place, most of Americans would buy things with the idea of "how much will this cost me per month" instead of "what is the price". This mentality and misuse of money put us where we are. Consider this, if even 60% of Americans were debt-free, would we have ever been in this position? If we had not allowed Credit to become our god, would we be in this problem?

I haven't reconciled how God operates yet, but I often equate the Old Testament to rules for society, while the New Testament is the playbook for personal daily life. As such, the blessings and punishments for Israel were as true then as they are today. Often when I'm reading Kings or Chronicles, I try to equate God's reaction to Israel's leaders to our leaders. Is this punishment for worshipping at the altars of Bael? Or is this the natural consequence of our actions?

This brings me to a bigger conversation on the nature of God. Let me reiterate that I'm not sure yet, so allow me to postulate a bit. I've heard arguments that because of God's absolute holiness, he is incapable of doing Evil. If God told the Israelites to kill off all the Canaanites including women and children and animals, then how can God be holy? And then there is some difficulty in reconciling that with the idea that God plays a passive role in our lives and when bad things happen they are the consequences of our actions not an active punishment from God. But then how does God change from the Old to the New Testaments? How does He shift from the pnishing, just, jealous God to the God of Love, Peace, and Forgiveness? I wonder about this: what if Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God, is our counsel who constantly pleas on our behalf to the Supreme Judge of the Universe? God the Father is unchanging and punishes and rewards today as He did 5,000 years ago, while Jesus, our doorway to God the Father, is the buffer. It's almost like when a child does something wrong and dad wants to punish the child. Mom steps in, soothes dad's mood, and the child is forgiven and given a warning instead of a spanking. Is this possible? Could this be how God opperates within Himself?

But then, maybe this is problematic too. Maybe this assumes that God changes His mind. But I think it's possible for God to be persuaded. Why pray if He can't be persuaded? Didn't Lott prolong the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by asking God to spare the cities if 50...... 5 righteous people could be found therein? I'm open to hearing arguments on both sides.