On July 19, 2006 the Mille Lacs Mesenger, Mille Lacs County’s official newspaper published the following letter to the editor. To Hell In A Hand Basket During a mass at Yankee Stadium, the late Pope John Paul said: “It is not right that the standard of living of the rich countries should seek to maintain itself by draining off a great part of the reserves of energy and raw materials that are meant for the whole of humanity.” In the summer of 2004, Pope John Paul II lectured American bishops about how their people were “hypnotized by materialism, teetering before a soulless vision of the world.” Only one fifth of the world’s people live in industrialized countries, yet they consume more than two thirds of the planet’s resources. With less than 5 percent of global population, the United States uses about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources. As a result of these greedy consumption patterns, the United States is not only ripping off a great part of the reserves of energy that are meant for the whole of humanity, it is also primarily responsible for a global ecological crisis. And our nation is spreading these evil materialistic tendencies throughout the world through military force. Two hundred thousand Iraqis died in the first Gulf War and 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the current war in Iraq. Plus 2,500 U.S. military men and women have died in the current war in Iraq. When observing people all around the world, in every nation, it is easy to see that most people will just blindly conform to their nation’s mainstream culture. Therefore, most Americans blindly go in the way of majority, by joining and participating in our nation’s cultural mainstream religion, mainline denominational Christianity. When they do so, they do not reject our nation’s materialistic ways. In spite of all the evidence that indicates that our nation is not good, but evil, most American Christians hold it up in high esteem, along with their religious leaders. However, if they were to open their minds to receive the truth they would quickly come to understand how evil our nation’s cultural-mainstream religious system is and where it is leading them. When Jesus spoke to His disciples and said: “Broad is the gate and wide is the way that leads to destruction and many go therein” and “straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to everlasting life and few go therein,” he was teaching them an essential Christian principle. He was telling them and all future Christians that they would need to question the majority’s opinion and then be willing to take and promote the minority’s opinion if they found the minority’s opinion to be right. Are the majority of our nation’s cultural-mainstream “Christians” following this essential Christian principle? No, I think not. Our nation’s cultural mainstream Christians blindly believe that our nation is basically good. And they believe this because they believe that it is unpatriotic and therefore a grave sin to question the supposed basic goodness of our nation. Our nation’s cultural mainstream “Christians” are not following the principle that Jesus said leads to everlasting life. The principle that they are following is the principle that Jesus said leads to destruction. A great multitude of mislead American Christians exercise a lot of political clout when it comes to shaping and promoting materialistic values leading, not only our nation, but the whole world to hell in a hand basket. Thomas Dalheimer, Wahkon
our nation is very materialistic and selfish. money controls everything. we're a fine example of the ugly side of capitalism.
I think it's just a wee bit worse than the ugly side, at this point haha, don't you agree? Anyhow, good post Wahkon.
I think it's the never-been-wiped ass end of capitalism. Well, one of the cheifs problems with mainstream American Christianity is that is has become a glorified social club. It's not simply that so many Christians have been mislead (which they have) but that so many more have been subdude by T.V., money concerns, bigger, better, and shinier crap and so they know what Christianity "should" be about but simply don't care. They just like being in the club.
You hit the nail on the head Jums. I was talking to a friend of mine who tried to reason with me that it's alright for a popular pastor to live in a $6 Million home. Now you're telling me with all the pain and suffering we have JUST in this country let alone the world you should be a man of God living this high off the hog? I'm not saying you should live in complete poverty. We must as other Christians point out when enough is enough though. For the area I'm in now I'd say you can find a fairly nice house 150k. If he's in a six million dollar home something is wrong. Period.
it's the deceitfulness of wealth. We're not gonna take any of it with us when we die and on our deathbed it's gonna mean a whole lot less to us. Jesus said that one cannot serve both God and money. Matthew 6:19-24
