{"id":7402,"date":"2012-03-10T12:54:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-10T20:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=7402"},"modified":"2012-03-11T12:59:58","modified_gmt":"2012-03-11T19:59:58","slug":"fixing-the-moral-deficit-biblical-principles-for-debt-reduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/fixing-the-moral-deficit-biblical-principles-for-debt-reduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing the Moral Deficit, Biblical Principles for Debt Reduction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chuck
Chuck Colson<\/figcaption><\/figure> by Chuck Colson –
\nThirty-five years ago, my friend Ron Sider published Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger<\/em>, a very influential book at the time. While I haven\u2019t always agreed with Ron, in fact, we\u2019re poles apart politically, I have no doubt of his integrity, his wisdom and his desire to bring biblical truth to all aspects of life.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why so I\u2019m happy that Ron has turned his attention to one of the most pressing issues of our time: our national debt.<\/p>\n

His new book, Fixing the Moral Deficit<\/a>, is the result of his reflections on the issue. As the title suggests, for Ron, the ballooning national debt isn\u2019t simply a matter of accounting. According to him, there are three \u201ccrises\u201d operating here: the first is the deficit crisis, the result of government spending more than it collects in taxes; the second is a poverty crisis, in which the bottom 20 percent become poorer, while the top twenty percent get wealthier. <\/p>\n

Together, he says, these add up to a third crisis\u2014which he calls the \u201cjustice crisis\u201d–in which we \u201cput current expenditures on our grandchildren\u2019s credit cards,\u201d which Sider calls \u201cflatly immoral.\u201d Amen. <\/p>\n

Having identified and described the problem, Sider offers a set of biblical principles that should guide our thinking. Again, while I don\u2019t always agree with his specific policy prescriptions, I agree with him about these principles. Let me share a few with you:<\/p>\n