{"id":7071,"date":"2012-01-09T13:24:04","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T21:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=7071"},"modified":"2012-01-09T13:24:04","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T21:24:04","slug":"morality-and-the-economy-no-separating-the-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/morality-and-the-economy-no-separating-the-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Morality and the Economy, No Separating the Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chuck<\/a>
Chuck Colson<\/figcaption><\/figure> by Chuck Colson –
\nThe next election should be all about the economy, right? Wrong in spades!<\/em><\/p>\n

During the seemingly endless build-up to the Iowa caucuses, there was one consistent refrain repeated over and over. It\u2019s like the big lie \u2014 the more you keep repeating it, the more people are going to believe it, but it remains a lie.<\/p>\n

The lie was simply this: that the political parties have to choose between social issues and economic issues. This year, the media and the party machines are telling us ad nauseam that the only issue that matters is the economy.<\/p>\n

So any candidate who wants to win the White House should just shut up about things like marriage, the sanctity of life, religious liberty, and those other annoying issues that distract us from focusing on jobs and the economy.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s crazy! Doesn\u2019t anybody get the connection between the social issues and economics issues <\/p>\n

One candidate who does, Rick Santorum had the courage to link the two in a recent Iowa town hall meeting. (And before I go on, please, folks, I\u2019m not endorsing him or anyone. I never do.)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Senator Santorum said:<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, [the election is] about growth and the economy, [but] it\u2019s also about what is at the core of our country . . . faith and family. You can\u2019t have a strong economy, you can\u2019t have limited government if the family is breaking down and we don\u2019t live good, moral, and decent lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Precisely right. And what does he get for his remarks? Backhanded compliments for his showing in Iowa and a stern warning from, among others, the conservative National Review:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what the National Review wrote online: \u201cIn a general election\u2026where the focus is almost certainly going to be on economic issues, it is questionable whether Santorum\u2019s relentless focus on social issues will play well with independent voters, especially in the crucial suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hogwash. If the nation\u2019s current economic crisis has taught us anything, it\u2019s that a healthy economy cannot thrive in the midst of moral breakdown. Ethical failures on Wall Street, Main Street, and Capitol Hill put us into this mess we\u2019re in today, as I\u2019ve said many times before.<\/p>\n

But how about some facts? I\u2019ll have the citations for you at BreakPoint.org: Take incarceration rates: something Santorum has alluded to and I\u2019ve seen with my own eyes: \u201cYoung men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families.\u201d And \u201c70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

How about education? 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. And children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes.<\/p>\n

I could go on and on.<\/p>\n

Do you think that crime rates, incarceration, low educational achievement, out of wedlock births, affect the economy and government spending? Of course they do, and the statistics prove this!<\/p>\n

If you want a healthy, thriving economy you\u2019ve got to have a strong moral societal foundation. And any so-called \u201cconservatives\u201d who think otherwise are simply deluding themselves; the two issues simply can\u2019t be separated.
\nAs Christians, we can\u2019t buy into the lie that we can separate economic prosperity from moral behavior. And we can\u2019t be afraid to hold the candidates\u2019 feet to the fire on this, either.<\/p>\n

HT: Break Point<\/a> (read full article)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chuck Colson – The next election should be all about the economy, right? Wrong in spades! During the seemingly endless build-up to the Iowa caucuses, there was one consistent refrain repeated over and over. It\u2019s like the big lie \u2014 the more you keep repeating it, the more people are going to believe it, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[67,87,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-economics","category-moral-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}