During this past
holiday season, my wife and I were discussing the so-called "Black
Friday" and the effect that commercialism and society's new approach to
morality have had on our country. During our growing up years, stores would be
closed all day on Thanksgiving and usually would not open until mid-morning or later the next day. The same
would take place during the Christmas holiday. Now, however, the trend moving
in the opposite direction is astounding for its speed and seeming disregard for
anything other than the bottom line. Now, I'm not one who decries profits or
that believes that commerce should be done without regard to the bottom line.
But the greater point here is not about profits, but about how our country's
moral moorings have eroded in little more than a generation.
One of the defining
characteristics of the information age is that anyone with a keyboard can
become a bestselling author. Take the case of Rob Bell as a clear example of
this trend. In his bestselling book “Love Wins,” Mr. Bell sets out to dispel,
in his view, the many mistaken ideas that people have about heaven, hell and
everything in between. As Mr. Bell sees it, Christendom is full of misguided
ideas about what Christianity is all about and what God will do at the end of
the age. The thought that some will be given eternal life and others will be
eternally condemned is too much for Mr. Bell to handle. His idea of heaven is
simply a glorified earth where people will live happy go lucky sort of lives
and war, pestilence, disease and hunger will all have vanished. And of course,
eventually everyone will “make it” if they want to.
