The massive dislocations from Katrina have revealed the endemic criminal nature of the New Orleans underclass. Having been born and raised in Greater New Orleans (first in NO on Fern St. off St. Charles Ave. near Carrollton Avenue, then in Metairie on Page Dr. off Veterans Blvd., then in Gretna on Colony Rd. off the Belle Chase Highway and a graduate of De La Salle High School on St. Charles Ave.), it is irrefutable that the majority of crime in NOLA originates in the black community. Yes, NOLA is poverty and crime riddled but no worse than in DC, Detroit, Oak Cliff-South Dallas and others.
So why has the “black crime problem” now emerged in certain local Dallas conversations? Could it be that the criminal element was not informed that Highland Park and University Park were off limits just like Audubon Place near Tulane University?
Is it really a “black problem” or is the root cause something other? The liberal explanation that “poverty and crime” are due to unfunded job programs, inadequate redistributionist welfare, lack of education, historical prejudice or mean spirited non-blacks is empty of truth and beyond old.
The visible crime problem telecast from NOLA actually had two faces. One was obvious and local. The other was subtle and pandemic. It chilled the soul to watch so many folks crying out… “The government has done nothing for me. Feed me. Give me shelter. Take care of me. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”
Katrina has laid open the nation’s systemic embrace of government as creator-protector-master. The major media and academia have collaborated by tilling, watering, weeding and fertilizing this socialist cancer whenever possible. It was the Democratic icons FDR and LBJ who first instituted American Communism and now the whole GOP, except for Ron Paul, are willing participants in collectivist theft and forced redistribution.
Rich and poor are equally addicted. The dependant poor, illiterate or not, think they are owed something from the government and The Man. They are not. The rich, having been forced to pay outrageous, confiscatory and illegal taxes, think it is the government’s job to take care of and remove the poor from their sight. That job never was and still is not the role of Constitutional government.
Our urbanized, techno-society has resulted in the majority being unable to provide for themselves. Coming face to face with that vulnerability is one way to understand the societal chaos after Katrina. Also, the previously common exposure to the healthy core values of rural life with its connection to the Creator’s Creation has been lost. What had once been self-sufficiency accompanied by the daily accomplishment of growing or doing something tangible has all but disappeared.
The small farming communities in America’s Tornado Alley do not degenerate into lawlessness after weather catastrophes. The Amish have neither a rampant crime problem nor do they demand government handouts if disaster happens. An insatiable appetite for the empty wealth of celebrity is now the common American reality. “Things” have become preeminent.
America’s poverty-crime-welfare-illiteracy-morality problem is primarily theological and derivatively political. But, the American pulpits have been darkened, its voice self-muzzled, no true refuge can be found and they do the bidding of the Local/State/Federal/UN Government. Any 501-c3, non-profit corporate church has organized itself as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Corporate State, its creator and master.
Politically speaking…
America has surrendered its freedom and responsibilities for a gilded cage on a socialist, techno-plantation. The Constitution has been buried. You, your children, your vehicles, your fiat currency, your gold, your property, your marriage, your business, your church corporation…everything you think you “own” has been appropriated by the State. At best you only rent the stuff.
Why is it the obligation of the citizens from Iowa, Nevada, Oregon, Maine and other states to pay for Katrina’s damage brought about by the insane housing decisions of the residents of New Orleans? The city is underneath sea level and dead in the middle of the Mississippi River’s alluvial flood plain. Only the Amazon flows more water than the Mississippi and life-threatening hurricanes come to the Gulf of Mexico every year. Ignorance of this inevitable calamity cannot be used as an excuse.
Now that inundation has come, where in the Constitution is the option or the obligation of the FedGov to crank up the debt machine and flood the place with fake-money FRN’s? Compassion and assistance for those who have suffered in this disaster is right, proper and Biblical. It is for the willing individuals, relatives and groups of individuals to respond. Nowhere in the Constitution is it mandated or optional for the FedGov to rebuild New Orleans, much less to have everyone else pay for it.
The only sensible, non-communist way for New Orleans to be rebuilt would be as free city, as in Hong Kong or Monaco. Michael S. Rozeff on Lew Rockwell does an excellent job of explaining the benefits of such an act of freedom in “The Gulf Coast – What Next?” The free market will work every time, a lot quicker and much less costly than Soviet Commands from the Kremlin on the Potomac.
It is the un-Constitutional US FedGov disaster that needs permanent fixing. The problem of protecting one’s personal wealth and resurrecting true liberty dims with each Supreme Court session, every election of spineless Congress-people and the pre-selection of Imperial Presidents from the neo-Fascist Republicans or paleo-Communist Democrats. The first step toward restoration of liberty would be the re-education of basic truths and Constitutional principles. That effort will not come from the bowels of our defacto rulers.
Theologically speaking…
Socialism, confiscation of the people’s resources and redistribution to the few, is grand theft by government. It violates the Eighth Commandment – “Thou shall not steal.” The pulpit stands silent when it should be thundering against this systemic sin.
The civil laws that have systematized the crimes of stealing, robbery, fraud, unfair takings, theft, embezzlement and etcetera are based in this Scripture. Men know this as sin. Man was created knowing this.
For those who might argue that Romans 13 gives government immunity from criticism and the demand for just dealings, please consider what Jesus said to a ruler of men in the Gospel of Mark.
Mark 10:17-23 (New American Standard Bible)
The Rich Young Ruler
17As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
18And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.
19″You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.'”
20And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.”
21Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
22But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.
23And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!”
The local and national crime problem is a direct expression of the human sin problem that originated with the Fall of Man in the Garden. This elemental Biblical doctrine – all men without exception are the fallen, sinful seed of Adam and in dire need of a Saviour – is anathema to the seeker-friendly Rick Warrens of today. An easy argument can be made from the Bible that the sin character of man is amplified when people cluster in large cities.
The American institutional church hides from the Biblical doctrine of sin and the fallen nature of man. The New Testament clearly speaks of this reality.
Romans 5:8-15 (New American Standard Bible)
8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
11And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
12Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned–
13for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
15But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
1 Corinthians 15:20-27 (New American Standard Bible)
20But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
21For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
23But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming,
24then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.
25For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.
26The last enemy that will be abolished is death.
27For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him.
The modern American Evangelical church also worships mammon in direct violation of the First Commandment – “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me.”
The overt worship of money found in Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar and other Word of Faith preachers are not the only examples. There is the subtle, studied worship of affluence and power found at “respectable” Dallas institutions such as Park Cities Presbyterian Church, Highland Park Methodist Church, Park Cities Baptist, St. Michael and All Angels and others.
The Sermon on the Mount and numerous other passages in the Bible instruct those who have to share with those who do not. In situations such as Katrina, Followers of the Way of Jesus are to give and do what they can. They are to be cognizable as His Bride, doing peaceful and righteous acts, and preparing the way for His Kingdom, ruled by the Prince of Peace. Acts of mercy in helping Believers and non-believers alike are examples of common grace and fulfilling the Matthew 28 Great Commission.
The liberal denominations run from the doctrine of sin and Biblical Truth. The high profile evangelical preachers are enrapt with power, image and money. Many in the supposedly Reformed denominations have an academic theology disconnected from the real world and are unwilling to rock the boat.
Jesus did not flinch from making very serious condemnations of the rulers in His day. See Matthew 23 and Luke 11.
Matthew 23:23-27 (New American Standard Bible)
23″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
24″You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
25″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.
26″You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
27″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
Luke 11:44-49 (New American Standard Bible)
44″Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.”
45One of the lawyers said to Him in reply, “Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too.”
46But He said, “Woe to you lawyers as well! For you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
47″Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them.
48″So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers; because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs.
49″For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute,
And yet…the people are being consumed by governmental thievery and mayhem, cultural pathology and an absence of Biblical Truth being proclaimed about the current morass.
Are there any shepherds who will speak against this shearing of the flock?
What say you R. C. Sproul?
What say you Sinclair Ferguson?
What say you Skip Ryan?
What say you John MacArthur?
What say you John Piper?
What say you Alistair Begg?
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”