Ukraine? Is that still going on?!?

Ukraine.

Chances are that is a place you have learned more about this year than ever before. Maybe it’s been awhile since you’ve heard about it, though. It seems that’s how news cycles work. When something’s not ‘new’ anymore, reporting dries up. But unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine is still quite dire. In this article, I want to tell you why what is going on in Ukraine should affect you. To start with, here’s a basic overview of what has happened to the people of Ukraine, including several congregations of the Ukrainian Church of God.

First off, here’s the facts. This isn’t political, this isn’t propaganda. This is simply the facts: In February 2022, Russian military forces invaded Ukraine. The occupation and the war still rages in certain regions of Ukraine. This has caused massive bloodshed and loss of life. This has caused massive devastation to cities, roads, infrastructure, and oh yeah, farmland. This has caused many people to flee Ukraine, seeking safety as ‘refugees’ in foreign countries. This has caused many people to flee their homes, but stay within the borders of Ukraine (‘internally-displaced people’).

Secondly, here’s a few ways this will affect you as a citizen of the earth. Amongst other economic ramifications, a significant source of the world’s grain comes from Ukraine. This year a lot of that has been destroyed, or made impossible to harvest and/or export. This will affect loads of people world-wide as certain food products are (or will shortly be) unavailable or way more expensive than normal. While for some people, this will merely be an inconvenience, for others this will cause hunger or serious struggles to provide for their family on limited budgets.

The people who have relocated to new countries with the title ‘refugee’ have been through unimaginable circumstances. Many of them have lost loved ones. Many of them have left behind the men in their lives (generally speaking, ‘military-aged men’ are currently not legally allowed to leave Ukraine). So, many wives are separated from their husbands, children separated from their fathers, all with the uncertainty of his safety. On top of this trauma, they find themselves now living as ‘guests’ in a country where the language is different, the currency is different, the school situation is different (not to mention ‘foreign!’), and they may be greeted with open arms by some of their neighbors and looked at with hatred or disgust by others.

Meanwhile, the people still within Ukraine (‘internally-displaced people’) have many of the exact same issues! Formerly quiet towns may now be overrun by new families who are from a different part of the country (think of a small town in Iowa suddenly having a surplus of new residents from California). With that can come many of the same issues of crowding, conflicting ways of thinking or living or even speaking (dialects of the same language). Also there’s always concern of ‘they’re gonna take our jobs!’

And then, of course, there are Ukrainians who continue to reside and live in literally war-torn regions. Many of these people have chosen to stay behind because ‘this is my home! Where else would I go?’ Or their health and mobility prevent them from easily traveling somewhere else. Or maybe they are literally not able to travel safely past certain borders or military checkpoints. And so they continue to try and stay alive, one day at a time.

All that to say, every Ukrainian has experienced more trauma than I have cumulatively experienced in my entire life…

Even if the war stopped today, this trauma will take years (if not decades) to fully process and heal from.

So what can you do?

Let me identify four practical ways you can respond to this mega-crisis, in the short-term and long-term.

1.) Pray. I know this may be trite or cliché, but I try to live by words attributed to Martin Luther: “Work as if everything depends on you, but pray as if everything depends on God.”

2.) Befriend Ukrainians. Maybe there are folks in your hometown who recently arrived from Ukraine. More likely, there are Ukrainians in your hometown who have been there already for some years. Either way, befriend them. Let them know that you are sorry for all that is happening in their homeland. That alone means the world to them.

3.) Learn about Ukraine. Scan through Netflix for shows about ‘Ukraine.’ Go to your local library or Amazon and find a book that picques your interest. It can be about Ukrainian history, culture, language, food, whatever you like. Education is always beneficial, and I dare say you presently know next to nothing about Ukraine. I confess that was my reality until quite recently!

4.) Get involved in humanitarian aid. There are many organizations out there. I cannot vouch for all of them. But there is one that I can vouch for. In the past several months, I have accompanied members of our Hungarian Church of God on 20-some trips into Ukraine, delivering humanitarian aid to ‘internally-displaced people.’ Usually we bring food, but also we have brought medicines, diapers, soap, clothes, toys for children, etc. Many of these deliveries are paid (atleast in part) through funds received by the Church of God Disaster Relief project. If you would like to help directly, I can personally guarantee funds given will be used to help Ukrainians. I will load the products into the van and drive the van myself!

Now is literally as good a time as any to contribute to the Disaster Relief project. Winter is coming…

There are entire communities of people who are hundreds (if not thousands) of miles away from their winter clothes. There are entire communities of people who have been living creatively in buildings not necessarily designed for housing. As an example, I know a mother who fled eastern Ukraine with her 5 children. They are graciously staying in a former clothing store. While protected from the elements, it certainly does not provide the level of warmth that a typical house would offer.

In addition to all of that, my most recent trip across the border saw the Hungarian border guard thanking us for taking things into Ukraine (His sister is married to a Ukrainian and they live in Ukraine). He said that 6 months ago, he would see 100 vans crossing the border daily, delivering humanitarian aid. But our van was the first such van he had seen in several days. The unfortunate reality is that there are very few people/organizations presently delivering supplies into Ukraine.

However, we are. And with your help, we can continue, so long as there are needs.

You may think you can’t do much to help. But let me assure you that YOU can make a massive difference.

Give here. Please designate ‘Ukraine’ in the comment.

(*Specific names and locations withheld for security purposes*).

IMPORTANT: How QAnon Threatens the Church

No, this moment in history is not normal. We live in a time of crisis that revolves around political and geographic fragmentation, a loss of faith in institutions, an enormous wealth gap between the rich and the poor, and under the constant influence of social media and its monitoring and algorithms. We've seen this before in history. It may have not been the internet in previous occurrences. Instead it was the radio, or the pamphlet. It occurs about every 80 years or so after a period of global hyper-connectivity experiences a backlash. The world counteracts against all of the global and ethnic integration, loses faith in the traditional forces that have kept society together, and moves toward an emotional, chaotic period of dangerous ideologies. People retreat into conspiracy theories; religious cults and bizarre sects flourish as institutional religion declines. What makes this period different is the speed and the scale at which this is happening. Nothing exemplifies this recklessness more than the QAnon movement that is growing globally and now has elected representatives in the U.S. congress. In a time when much of the Christian movement in the world is choosing to focus on political power and ideology, QAnon represents the next dangerous frontier for the church where service, theology, and compassion could be replaced by fear, conspiracy, and division.

 Conspiracy theories are nothing new. They are especially prevalent during time of rapid transition and confusion. People who are attracted to conspiracy theories are often those who feel powerless against forces bigger than themselves, are inclined towards a victim mentality, or resent where they are in life. Conspiracy theories offer four big payoffs: 1) They make powerless people feel like they have valuable, insider information. 2) They quickly identify an enemy who can be blamed for all of their ills and concerns. 3) They have the potential to create communities of people that bond over being against the world together. 4) Finally, a conspiracy theory is a very convenient belief because it can never be proven wrong. After all, if you don't agree, it's just because you have been manipulated by the dark forces. Enter QAnon.

 In many ways, groups formed around conspiracy theories can serve as a pseudo-church or cult - one that puts the person in a self-centered frame of mind and is constantly seeking to identify enemies and live in perpetual fear. That's what unhealthy religion does as well and we've seen plenty of that lately. In many places, global Christians are more interested in accruing political power and winning the argument than changing their community and serving those least like them. The message of Jesus and the New Testament is replaced by the dysfunctional Israelite mentality that wanted a king with political power (that didn't go so well). If theocratic politics is akin to dysfunctional Israel reborn, QAnon is like the gnostic movement, which deviated from Jesus' teachings in favor of a detachment and disdain for the world.

QAnon followers are your neighbors, they are in churches, they might be your dad or your grandma. They believe that QAnon is a person deep inside the U.S. Government in the Department of Energy (or some other department) who is exposing lots of secretive information about how their political enemies are conspiring against them and society. It often involves conspiracy theories revolving around child molestation, but can include warnings about vaccines, can be hostile to both education and science, or can go on about Satanism or how technology is being used to control people etc.  QAnon conspiracies often go after liberal Hollywood celebrities like Tom Hanks (who is a Greek Orthodox Christian and not really that political). Then there are conspiracies about the illumnati, UFOs, Bill Gates and the idea that some politicians actually have lizard skin underneath their human skin (no joke). It's often the case that a QAnon follower is someone who is pretty naive about the internet. They access it in lesser known parts of the internet like 4chan, 8chan and Reddit and take it all at face value. It all sounds pretty goofy, but 22 Republicans in congress and 2 independents have supported QAnon beliefs. QAnon is alive and well in Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.

But who is Q? The primary sources are James and Ronald Watkins, a father and son team who gained control of the message board 8chan, which is filled with lots of questionable material including child pornography. They were based in the Philippines and started posting on October 28, 2017. Q believers don't seem to realize that the Philippines is a hub of dark web entrepreneurs who spread pornography, scams, and conspiracies from the safety of some nice home in Manila. The most wanted criminal in the world was a thirty-something, obese American who brilliantly realized how to sell illegal pharmaceutical drugs over the internet to Americans with remote doctors signing off on the prescriptions. He made billions of dollars off of the opiate addiction of Americans. The Philippines was a good base of operation because it's so easy to pay-off the authorities in that country. Cyber-libel cases are also extremely rare in the Philippines (The F.B.I. eventually arrested the cyber-drug dealer). Of course, the Q leaders have managed to monetize their conspiracy theory with books, t-shirts, and other memorabilia. Unfortunately, the F.B.I. has not always been able to stop actual acts of violence in the name of QAnon and those are expected to grow exponentially in the near future. Watkins had previously made money by starting porn sites designed to get around Japanese censorship rules. Fortunately, it looks like the Philippines finally had enough of this embarrassment and chased Watkins back to the United States.

[Side note: For those of us interested in actually fighting sex trafficking, QAnon is not helpful. Their stupid conspiracy theories interfere with the actual work of rescuing people from human slavery. It's deeply counter-productive and minimizes the issue so that false and ludicrous charges are constantly on the web and in the media; while the real criminals get ignored.]

So how did your sweet, church-going Grandma become a die-hard QAnon follower? Well, it can be addictive. Q releases regular "Q-drops" of enticing information and follows it up with melodramatic writing along the lines of "I could get killed by sharing this information. I must go now." It's like being on a giant investigative team solving the world's most dramatic and consequential mystery:  What evil forces are taking over the world? It can appeal to lonely people, people who are not good critical-thinkers, people who naively believe anything on the internet, and people who are angry. The primary in-road, however, is sharing Q's political beliefs.  It then can become a vortex that sucks people in and no amount of intercession by friends and family members can break the spell. But how, specifically, does your evangelical grandma get caught up in a movement that originated with a pornographer based in the Philippines?

In some circles of Christianity (and Islam, and Hinduism, and Buddhism), there is a fascination with end-time prophecy. Looking for symbols and hidden messages in the Book of Revelation to identify current events has been going on since...well, since before that book was even written. QAnon taps into that same desire to uncover mysteries and find clues that lead to dramatic findings about what is going on in our turbulent world of 2020. A scientific reason for the pandemic is too boring, so a conspiracy comes to the rescue. Then there's the political angle. Since much of Christianity has chosen to become very aligned with particular politicians and political parties; any conspiracy theory that adds fuel for hatred of the opposing party is welcomed with open arms. Certain segments of Christianity (certainly not all) have a real hostility toward science, education, and intellectualism. Something like QAnon provides reasons why none of those things can be trusted. Then there's the fact that we are living through a time of increased natural disasters, political division, a global pandemic, and other apocalyptic-like events that make people feel like they are the generation witnessing the biggest catastrophe in human history. It is not true, of course, but QAnon is not for students of history. Good old Q has even dropped scripture in his hate-filled messages from time to time. That really confirms the truth of Q for Grandma because the reality is that QAnon is becoming an extra-Biblical source that guides her life. A key to Q's manipulation is making it seem that no other source of information can truly be trusted. Q makes predictions that never come to pass, but that doesn't matter to QAnon followers. That just means he is throwing people off track on purpose. QAnon becomes an emotional and spiritual belief for Grandma. It's not about reason and healthy skepticism in a world where, say...anyone, myself included, can post their opinions on something and have it instantaneously beamed around the world. QAnon people will often claim that they do research, but that research is usually limited to any website or source that aligns with Q's presuppositions.

 QAnon evangelists are now all over Youtube and have their own websites and social media. It has far outgrown Q. Many of these Q evangelists come from the evangelical Christian world. They are your grandma, but with more social media savvy and who know how to monetize it. The next generation of scamming televangelists may primarily be online and linked to Q-like conspiracy movements. As QAnon grows, it will morph into whatever people want to believe, whenever they want to believe it, and the Bible will be used to justify all of it. This is the birth of a new age of heresy and cults--the kind that always flourish in times like these. There's nothing to stop a new QAnon from emerging and being part of a more outwardly fascist movement, or leftist movement, or any other ideology. Wherever people feel like powerless victims amidst all this global change and want to uncover the identity of the cabal oppressing them, there we will see a QAnon-like cult emerge.

 So what can society do about this? The country of Finland is teaching kids how to identify fake-news and navigate the internet beginning in elementary school. These are the kinds of skills and skepticism that need to be developed in every country. Conspiracy theories are raging around the world and leading to deaths in places as closed as Myanmar and as open as the U.S. In the same way that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie theatre because of the potentially dangerous consequences, some forms of monitoring and censorship have to become more prevalent. Do we really want videos on how to traffic women or groom children to be on Youtube and Facebook? There are limits to how much poison our societies can withstand in this cyber-world.

For Christians, the chances of more people in their churches getting caught up in this kind of thinking is very real. Complicating things is that many of these Q believers will be citing scripture or will claim that they and Q are totally in line with the Bible. This is where the subjective nature of Bible reading combined with a church that has become hyper-politicized will come back to bite in a big way. Institutional Christianity has a habit of creating the monsters that then erode it. In previous eras, the church survives because of people who choose to seek service instead of power. People who find opportunity in global crisis instead of oppression. People who express and live out hope instead of fear. And people that transform their societies for the better, rather than condemn them. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the church needs to spend less time being the thermometer and more time trying to be the thermostat. Grandma would do far better spending her time delivering freshly-made cookies to the newly homeless in the post-Covid economy than spending four hours on the internet trying to find out which Hollywood actor is a cannibal. And she will feel better for it. This shouldn't be rocket-science for true Christians. In fact, just about everything Jesus says in the Bible will lead someone away from the mentality that it takes to be a Q believer. One mentality is completely centered on self-sacrifice (hence the symbol of the cross), and the other is completely centered on self-protection. You can't serve two masters.

Until the world knows how to navigate social media better, and the countries of the world regain their social and economic equilibrium, our societies and the church will be forced into a box. We will constantly be presented with a choice: Do I want to spend my time living in fear or do I want to spend my time making a difference in my community? The level of destruction and the duration of this era of crisis will depend on how the majority of us answer that question.  That's the real Q.

Are We Headed into a New Christian Epoch?

The Covid 19 Corona Virus crisis that has broken out around the world is not an isolated problem. It comes at a unique moment when around the world there is a counter-action to globalization, a decline in democracy, a rapid rise of nefarious social-media use, a collapse in the trust of institutions, growing environmental concerns, and a decline in institutional religion. In other words, Covid-19 is just the fuse that has lit a very big powder-keg of TNT that was building up for a long time. Could we be headed toward not just a new reality, or simply some areas where the church needs to make some minor adjustments, but rather a complete re-invention of church and society?

While every period of history has conflict, war, disease, and death; every once in a while, the Earth truly does enter into a radically new era. The Post WWII era was very different than what had preceded before. What followed saw the rise of automobile usage, massive commercial air-travel, anti-colonialism, the Cold War, the nuclear age, and new levels of prosperity and the establishment of a global Middle class. These things re-invented the world. So did the Industrial Revolution beginning in the 18th Century creating a new world of nation-states, heavy machinery, traveling faster than a horse can gallop, and relying on electricity to name just a few epoch changing shifts.

The sudden shift in mood after the Wuhan outbreak became a global pandemic had the makings of a moment where we enter into a new epoch; not just another simple moment on the world’s future path. I immediately thought of a book I read back in 2008 by Phillis Tickle entitled “The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why.” Tickle argues in that book that Christianity is entering into a completely new paradigm; an epochal shift that occurs every 500 years. The first 500 years, of course, begins with the life of Christ and becomes the age of the Disciples and the Church Fathers who form the various church councils as Rome is Christianized (and Christianity institutionalized and legitimized). The second 500 years rely on the monastic movement to preserve a lot of Christian heritage amidst a lot of institutional carnage. It leads to the division between the Roman Catholic West and the Orthodox East known as the Great Schism of 1054. Five-hundred years after that, Martin Luther ushers in the Protestant Reformation, which puts an emphasis on the individual and Scripture which is then challenged by Enlightenment, modernist ideas. Now, (she argued back in 2008), that we were heading into a time when various different Christian traditions (Pentecostals, Conservatives, Liturgicals, and Social Justice Christians) would cross-pollinate with each other.

There’s a lot that is interesting and unconvincing about Tickle’s theory. Like the Fourth Turning Theory of Strauss and Howe, there are a lot of things historians will want to pick apart. Tickle’s cross-pollinating view doesn’t seem to have come to pass and it is also not a very macro-shift. Perhaps, she simply didn’t think big enough in her paradigm change. What might be valuable is simply the idea that there is such a thing as epochal changes (I believe there are), and that they completely re-set societies values, expectations, living conditions, and destroy complete industries and ways of life.

So what might a completely new Christian epoch look like? The shift would be so transformative it would be hard to imagine beforehand. My guess is that it will have less to do with a virus-panicked future of events that are no longer held, schools that are no longer safe, and masks and spacesuits that need to be perpetually worn. There will eventually be nanotechnology or ultra-violent technology that can kill and control viruses. But the economic displacement, distrust of institutions, shift to more cyber-life, cyborg technology, and technological surveillance could alter people’s daily life, social expectations, and theology. Initially, as people become disillusioned with materialism and technology; we will probably see an explosion of sects, cults, and an openness to spirituality. This does not mean Christian institutional growth. Ministries (like most churches) that have high overheads and live basically from month to month will struggle. Spiritual discipleship may need to occur one on one, in homes, and outside of the confines of high-expense Christian institutions. Expect, for instance, to see far fewer Christian colleges and seminaries and people getting their theological training more hands-on or online, or forgoing it all-together intentionally. The lack of an emphasis on theology (will terrify traditionalists and probably lead to a lot of heresy,) but Christianity has certainly been through that before.  It could also mean that there’s far less of a concern with theological training and more of a premium put on leaders that mobilize people to action outside of classrooms and church buildings. It could be that in the same way that we see empty Cathedrals all across Europe, we may see empty church buildings across America; or churches that have been turned into environmentally-friendly studio apartments. Communal living could return with spiritual communities being mainly tied to local, communes that share an environmentally power-grid (with everyone working at home). If it sounds far-fetched, then it’s probably a good guess of what life after an epochal change would look like. Nobody would have predicted four months ago that there would be no airplanes in the sky and every concert around the world cancelled.

We may see an initial increase in Christian nationalism as the counter-action phase of hyper-Globalization kicks in and people look locally and nationally to develop their identities (and identify enemies). That will further delegitimize Christianity in many places and amongst many ethnic groups. That nationalism will eventually be discredited and bottom-up, very non-institutional Christianity may grow. With a growing divide between rich and poor and hundreds of millions of jobs lost to automation and artificial-intelligence, it could be that Christian communities form around labor movements as they did in Brazil. Those movements were not about Marxism or Liberalism, they were about Christians vouching for basic, decent, human living conditions for a large class of Christian and non-Christian exploited workers.

It could be that so many people in the future are under surveillance and make body-alterations with new biotech technology (instead of a mechanical leg for a war vet, think of mechanical enhancements that prevent Alzheimer’s or improve memory and knowledge), that most Christian debates with non-Christians revolve around issues of bio-tech and not social issues.

These are not predictions; although I do expect some of these things to come to pass; even rapidly. Obviously, there is no way to know the future. Neither are these things I necessarily want to happen. Rather I am suggesting that we may be on a cusp of a completely different epoch. When there is an epochal change, we cannot imagine what life was like before. We may be stunned that we ever met in large, expensive buildings, or paid $120,000 for a college education, or drove cars that didn’t fly and operated on oil instead of banana juice. Epochal changes mean things are radically different and the old ways don’t make sense and aren’t even possible anymore. Many things about the church will stay the same; but Christianity has always been infinitely more flexible than we have allowed ourselves to admit. After all, our leader said “wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there will I be.” All we know is that the future will take us to some completely unforeseen places and He will be there with us.

Patrick Nachtigall is a Europe-based missionary and the author of 5 books dealing with globalization and Christianity; including In God We Trust?:  A Challenge to American Evangelicals.”

The American Church and the Great Depression of 2020

The Great Depression that began in 1929 left an indelible mark on a generation and was a traumatic national experience. It was also a difficult time for mission agencies, missionaries, and churches. It’s a long-held belief of many Christians that in difficult times, the church experiences revival and grows. This is not necessarily true. While some turn to faith, just as many do not. In American history, times of great trial tend to be bad for Christian churches and organizations. Attendance goes down, finances suffer, and there is a lack of people interested in being pastors or missionaries. This is American Christianity’s well-established pattern through the Revolutionary War, The Civil War, and The Great Depression. To make this time different, will require a real concerted effort by churches and Christian organizations, innovative solutions, and a willingness to change. Even then, the obstacles will be enormous.

How the U.S. Economy Tanked

That we are headed toward not just a recession, but another great depression should not be a surprise to anyone. Plenty of people were not surprised by the Great Depression of 1929; and many economists (such as Stephen Roach and Nouriel Roubini) were warning that Alan Greenspan’s roaring 1990’s economy was creating dangerous bubbles, reckless speculation, and dangerous financial instruments. It took until 2008 for all of that to become obvious. It should have been America’s great awakening to reality; but instead, the U.S. doubled-down by adding an extraordinary amount of debt. Some of that debt was needed since banks and consumers weren’t spending, leaving only one pillar left: the government. With an $850 million financial package, the government had to step in to prevent a total collapse of the banking system. Much more was provided by the government, but most of those trillions of dollars of aid went to corporations that hoarded cash or bought their own stock creating a new stock-bubble. This led to a great divide between Wall Street and Main street.

Inflated stocks, low interest rates, and inflated property prices made the stock market hit all-time highs, which led non-profits, churches, and other Christian organizations to believe that 2008 had just been a bump in the road. Unemployment went to all-time lows (as people got used to having multiple jobs without benefits). But the next “bull run” and “economic expansion” included low wages, a lack of benefits, and sky-rocketing health care and education costs. This confusingly inflated the stock market and depleted the average American’s bank account. By 2020, there was no room for a “black swan” event like the COVID-19 pandemic. The result is that we now have an economy that will eventually collapse harder than in 2008; but with no mechanisms to deal with the collapse. Having lowered interest rates for too long (Quantitative Easing 1,2 and 3), having failed to tax sufficiently, and having not built up a financial surplus, the United States must now add even more debt and raise it to levels mathematically impossible to pay back. It’s a problem that goes back at least three presidential administrations, if not five. This downturn will be severe. This world which has put nearly $200 trillion on an unpaid credit card will not be able to avoid this financial day of reckoning. It’s a reminder of how fragile and temporal the things of this world are.

How the American Church Responds During Financial Crisis

Going into the Great Depression of 1929, the American church felt invulnerable. Finances were good, but not great. There was still a good size missionary crew, people wanted to be pastors, denominations still felt confident, and the American church was in a period where it believed itself to be the true representatives of what it meant to be America. There was the widespread belief among evangelicals that Christians knew how to put America first and America knew how to put Christianity first. The American church, however, had already entered a period in which people were starting to distrust the church, were becoming disenchanted with religion in general, and were getting less engaged in foreign missionary work. The church noticed occasionally that things were not booming quite as much as before, but didn’t feel particularly alarmed. The church and Christian organizations didn’t realize that the waning of enthusiasm in the 1920’s would be exacerbated by the stock market collapse of 1929. All of this disappeared in the flash of a moment. The parallels to today are eerily similar.

“Interest in missions was waning before the depression, even before the Depression, missionary funds begun to decrease,” said Samuel C. Kincheloe. Financial giving had been going down for mission agencies in the 1920’s. The Foreign Mission Conference of North America saw a dramatic decline in young people wanting to become missionaries and the China mission-field got hit particularly hard. The Executive Secretary of the Home Missions Council reported that “almost all major denominations are now in a period of financial stringency in the conduct of mission work. We are in the days of failing budgets.” (1) Small rural churches were already seeing very big declines.

The confidence of American Christianity and in Christianity as the national religion fell apart quite quickly. Political power and finances had created hubris. Charles Fiske pointed out that “America has become almost hopelessly enamoured of a relilgion that is little more than a sanctified commercialism; it is hard in this day and this land to differentiate between religious aspiration and business prosperity.” (2) He continued: “America seems to be degenerating into a sort of Babsonian cult; which cannot distinguish between what is offered to God and what is accomplished for the glory of America and the furtherance of business enterprise.” (3)

Edwin Lewis wrote in 1934, “We borrowed our criteria of evaluation from the world about us—a world gone mad in its worship of mere size, a world that had set itself to create bigger ships, bigger aeroplanes, bigger locomotives, bigger buildings, bigger universities, bigger corporations, bigger banks, bigger everything-except men!”(4) When the economic bubble popped, the American church finally realized how much excess there had been; and how the hubris was unwarranted. In the best of times, evangelical churches are high-maintenance affairs with high over-head costs. Moments of financial crisis tend to make that abundantly clear.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” Mark Twain told us. The Great Depression of 2020 will include a financial shock so grave that it will completely re-order American society and change its values. Big spending by individuals will be frowned upon, and many companies and Christian organizations will have to scale down dramatically to survive. Some will fail to do so and will go bust. Others will scale down, but not enough, and go bust as well. Many Christians like to remind us that “God owns the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10). But the reality is that God doesn’t always take away suffering, doesn’t take away tough times, and every single day churches filled with wonderful people and that have done great work for decades, close down. The Kingdom always lives on and is immune to these downturns, but our man-made organizations are a different creature. There’s a difference between the Church and the post-Constantinian institutional church.

Things Will Have to Change Dramatically

This will not be a short crisis and the trauma of it will change giving patterns for baby-boomers and other generations. It will take at least a decade to re-invent the global economy and it will look far different than it does today. The American church will be tempted to pull back and cut out the missionary enterprise. Pulling back is understandable. Many churches and people won’t have a choice but to live in a more frugal way. Buildings are expensive, big staffs are expensive, and running programs costs money. The foreign field will not be as much of a priority when there are so many domestic needs within the community. Denominations and Christian organizations doing work that falls outside of the international mission category will fare even worse. Whatever is not tangible, dramatic, and clearly about more than the institution will be discarded. The missionary-enterprise has one advantage. Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19 is a command to his church: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” There is a strong sense among churches that some form of international outreach is always necessary. Hopefully, this will be the case in the post-2020 world. We must continue the global ministry of our churches; especially in a time when the world will be tempted to isolate nations from each other. But it will not be an easy sell (so to speak), and it’s not a given. Societies turn very inward at times like this.

Now this may seem like a self-serving essay from a missionary. Is this an argument to preserve the missionary first and foremost as the most valuable part of the organization and church? For denominations, international ministry is the component that the denomination offers that is most exciting, which feels the most needed, and which best captures the imagination of church. That, and disaster relief, have tended to be the “bread and butter” of Christian denominations.

But this is not an argument for self-preservation amidst a Great Depression. Actually, missionaries, more than anybody in the church, are uniquely prepared to withstand a Great Depression. We literally live month to month every day of every year. All of us check our remittances monthly wondering if there will be enough to keep us on the field. We live with the pressure of funding other ministries and we check monthly if the money is there for us to continue those ministries to which we are giving our lives. The lives of our children and the sacrifices they make by living in such unstable situations weighs on us daily. Many of us never feel safe in our homes, knowing that a change in the local currency, problems with finances, local upheaval, or a myriad of other challenges can lead to needing to move at a moment’s notice. Going without seeing family, living with financial stress, having low salaries, not having enough for retirement, and being ready to have the bottom-fall out at any second is a reality that every missionary knows a lot about. Every missionary I know knows that tomorrow is not guaranteed for them, and that the money could disappear at any second, which will lead to losing your “home” at any moment. This is a stress so internalized into the psyche of missionaries that we don’t even talk about it much— it’s normal. It’s the deal we signed up for. When, not if, we enter a new Great Depression; missionaries can scale back, but still be catalytic figures, global connectors, and models for the church. They can even model how to do ministry on-the-fly; needing to always keep things running even if the resources are not there.

Although this time will be a period of crisis, the American church should quickly adapt and view this crisis as a unique opportunity. This can be a time of shedding old wine-skins and allowing ourselves to be molded into a new shape of clay: a people that radiate humility, peace, and servanthood. While our society has a difficult time remaining calm and unified; we can demonstrate the peace that surpasses all understanding. The church as well as denominations will need to scale back financially on some unnecessary things, and make sure that amidst the chaos they are catalysts for positive works, humble evangelism, and community unity. American Christianity can re-define itself in front of the world. Flexibility, adaptability, and engaging with difficult places will be something all American Christians will need to do during this challenging time. These are the times that bring humility and greater dependence on God and on each other. It’s a test of the character of the American church. And it is a test we need to pass with flying colors.

1) Research Memorandum on Religion in the Depression (New York: Social Science Research Council, Bulletin 33, 1937), p. 51.

2) Fisk, Charles. Confessions of a Puzzled Parson, Charles Scribner’s Sons 1928 p. 14.

3) Ibid.

4) Lewis, Edward. A Christian Manifesto (New York: Abingdon Press, 1934. p. 202.

Patrick Nachtigall is a Europe-based missionary and the author of 5 books dealing with globalization and Christianity; including In God We Trust?: A Challenge to American Evangelicals.”

Can Christians Learn Anything from the Notre Dame Fire?

The fire and partial destruction of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris gripped the world in real time.  The sight of the wood-and-lead spire collapsing gave us the same feeling of helplessness we felt on 9/11:  the sense that something we always thought would be there was suddenly gone in a blink of an eye.

Many reasons have been offered for why the Notre Dame fire struck so many as a traumatic, tragic moment.  There was the fact that it has been standing since the 13th Century, that it is one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, as well as a place where many have personally gone and created great memories.  There were also those that viewed it as a sign of the fragility of Western Civilization, the collapse of Christendom, and even a reminder of mortality itself.

As a student of religion and a frequent visitor to Notre Dame, I felt both a sense of horror and depression.  Horror about the world losing such a treasure, and depression because I truly could not picture a Paris—nay, a world without Notre Dame.  But after the initial shock wore off and enough of the building was salvaged to begin a multi-year renovation; I thought more about what the partially-burned Cathedral can teach us Christians. 

I found the first lesson to be that the church is fragile.  Notre Dame may have looked like a stunning mass of stone and marble, but it suffered from corrosion throughout the building.  Centuries of leaking lead, rain, and even pigeons had taken their toll and the 856-year-old building was in need of significant renovation. 

The greater church is fragile too.  When the church allows itself to get overly-politicized, becomes a self-protective institution, fails to stand up to issues of injustice, and becomes known more for what it is against than what it is for; the shine of the church is dulled, and our structure weakens.  Bad things do happen in this world over time; not just outside the church, but inside the church as well.  All of us Christians have to be on guard for the rust and rot that can form in our churches’ expressions of Christianity.  As long as we are a part of this world, our Christian communities are vulnerable to erosion and decay.

A second lesson is that the church can be viewed as a monument from the past.  Although, Notre Dame has an active congregation, the majority of people in Paris do not go to church at all and most visitors admire the Cathedral as a thing of the past—something not entirely relevant to today’s world. 

Today, throughout the Christian world, many of our denominations and institutions are being challenged like never before.  Our societies wonder if our Christian faith is relevant in the 21st Century.  And in the same way that many entered Notre Dame with awe but walked out still without faith, a lot of our societies still don’t see the church as relevant.  They see us keeping alive an ancient faith as opposed to one that is actively engaging and changing the world.  There are still too many churches that prefer staying within our thick fortress walls, rather than demonstrate that in today’s overly-stimulated, media-saturated, and fast-moving world; faith is a road to sanity and meaning. 

The third lesson is good news! The church has been renovated before, and it will be re-built and re-shaped again.  Notre Dame’s steeple that we all watched fall, was from a massive renovation done in 1843 which brought a whole new appreciation to the building by the previously jaded people of France.  The architects tried to honor the past, while adding new elegant touches like the now lost steeple known as la flèche. And even prior to the construction that began in 1160, the church had existed in the same location for several centuries in several different structures. 

The church too, goes through periods of renovation and renewal.  Whether it’s was the monastic movement of Western Christianity in the 4th Century, the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century, or the Holiness Movement and anti-slavery campaigns of the 19th Century; the Christian faith allows for critiques, self-reflection and new expressions of Christian truth.  The Christian church played a critical part in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s as the life of Dr. Martin Luther King demonstrates so vividly. The church can have stone pillars of timeless truth yet be open to change and refinement; just like Notre Dame.  In this temporal world that will bring temptation, corruption, blindness and other forms of spiritual erosion, renovation and renewal is a necessity. 

Which brings us to the final lesson of the Notre Dame Fire:  the church is resilient.  Thanks to the work of the 400 brave Parisian firefighters and the brilliance of the original medieval architects, Notre Dame’s walls held, and the structure still stands.  Today, there are over 2 billion Christians in the world, and our faith is still on track to be the most popular religion in the world by 2050.

Throughout the world, we are seeing Christian expressions, theologies, and missionary movements arising from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  Within North America, the Christian church is starting to become more introspective regarding its witness and outreach and examining how effectively it is truly impacting our neighborhoods and society.  Even in ‘Post-Christendom Europe,’ new community-based forms of the church are gaining traction and charismatic movements are growing even within the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.  That means the church is not going anywhere. 

We will see debates about the future of Notre Dame, particularly about how to use new technology and designs while still honoring the original design.  This is the same conversation we are always having in the church as well.  And those dialogues and debates can often lead to fire, brimstone, and a sense that the whole thing could burn down.  But it never does.  And had this particular version of Notre Dame been burnt down, a new one would have risen.  Our churches function the same way.  The whole incident at Notre Dame is not only a reminder of our mortality; but of our belief and commitment in resurrection and a new, better life.

About the Author:  Patrick Nachtigall is the Regional Coordinator for Europe and the Middle East for Global Strategy and leads the Three Worlds Team.  He is the author of 5 books on Christianity and globalization including "In God We Trust?:  A Challenge to American Evangelicals" and "Facing Islam Without Fear:  A Christian's Guide to Engaging the Muslim World" (also translated into German).  He has an M.A. from Yale University and has been to nearly 80 countries examining the church in a variety of settings.  Originally from Costa Rica, he has worked in Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.  He lives in the Black Forest, Germany with his wife Jamie and son Marco.  He is available for consultations and public speaking. 

ANNOUNCEMENT: Kihms Move to Hungary for 3W

We are very excited to announce that Dan, Christy, and Sofie Kihm will be moving to Hungary to be more strategically-based for their role as Europe X Coordinators. Europe X is a new church-planting network that was launched in by the Three Worlds team in April 2018. It is for churches in Europe that are committed to creating a church-planting DNA in a post-Christendom context. The Kihms will be tracking with pastors, churches, and their church plants. They will also work alongside the Hungary Church of God, where we have three pastors all in their 30s and two churches plus a new outside-the-box church-plant.

Budapest has become a strategic location for our Three Worlds work. The Church of God in Hungary regularly opens their facilities to events for the whole region. The Budapest Lectures were established here to create a place of connection for pastors, and we recently launched Europe X there as well. It is an inexpensive city that centrally located and is only a one- to two-hour flight on a low-cost carrier to all of our Europe X and church-plant locations. The Kihms will continue to be the main 3W contact people for Holland where they served for 5 years! They will also continue their work with the Agape Faith United Church in Bulgaria, and the two young churches in Northern Italy. Along with the appointment of Nathan and Stacy Tatman (3W-Associate Regional Coordinators), the Three Worlds team is positioning itself for a large emphasis on church-planting with the next generation of leaders.

They will relocate to Budapest in the summer of 2019 as our Europe X duties expand and their change in location will be recognized at the Church of God Convention in Orlando. Please lift up the family as they look to find a home and Sofie settles into a new school.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Nathan and Stacy Tatman Join 3W Team!!!

We are thrilled to announce that Nathan and Stacy Tatman are joining the 3W Team and will become Associate Regional Coordinators for Europe and the Middle East. For the past decade Nathan Tatman has been serving as the Mission-Advancement Pastor at County Line Church of God in Auburn, Indiana. Nate holds a bachelor’s in business administration and a master’s in ministry leadership. Stacy Tatman is a Registered Nurse that works at Lakewood Christian School in Auburn. She has worked in a variety of settings, providing direct patient and family care, as well as facilitating socio-behavioral researchPrior to that they opened a Christian youth center and coffee shop. For the past 9 years, Nathan has worked closely with the 3W Team and the pastors and leaders in Europe-Middle East; having made over 20 trips to our region for ministry purposes.

As Associate Regional Coordinators, Nathan and Stacy will be working to partner with new and existing churches in the areas of church health and multiplication throughout the region. This will include extensive work with the newly created Europe X network as these churches seek to create a church-planting DNA particularly within the Post-Christendom context. They will be based out of Madrid, Spain.

Nathan and Stacy are the parents of five children: Dylan, Kayla, Aubry, Daleska and Emily. The two youngest, Daleska and Emily will be joining them in Madrid as they continue to attend school. Their daughter Aubry plans on attending St. Louis University in Madrid as well. Kayla will continue studying at Anderson University and their son Dylan will remain in the Ft. Wayne area with his fiance, Sara Johnson.

The Tatmans will begin their fundraising process and be commissioned at the Church of God Convention in Orlando this June. We hope to see them move into our region by Summer of 2020.

The 13th Annual Patty Awards: My Top 10 Books for 2018

It's time for the 13th Annual Patty Awards, where I give out the awards for the best books I've read in the year.  All of the big “A list” stars are walking onto the Red Carpet right now.  Look, it's Mike Lookinland who played “Bobby” in “The Brady Bunch.” Hey! Is that Delta Burke with Gerald McRaney? Over there! It’s Philip Mckeon who played Alice’s son “Tommy’ on the “TV show Alice!” And next to him it’s that famous vixen, Morgan Fairchild! The atmosphere is electric, so let’s get started.

This year was a great year for books. I read 43, and it’s hard to pick the top 10. For once, there were very few bad or disappointing books. Of course, they cater to my tastes, so mind the description to see if it’s something you are really interested in.  Drum roll!

10)  The Last Days of the Incas  by Kim MacQuarrie:  The Incas are a fascinating civilization, and this book really brought to life how sophisticated, but fragile this Empire was before the Spaniards arrived. The Incas themselves were a very small indigenous group that happened to have colonized many other groups over an enormous and forbidding territory. The story of how Francisco Pizzaro and a handful of Spaniards managed to completely overtake the Western half of South America is enthralling and unbelievable. MacQuarrie does a great job of making history come alive. The book feels very cinematic and will make you want to go explore ruins in Peru. It’s also more accurate and up-to-date in its facts than most books on the Incas. Really well done!

9)  The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff: It’s World War 2 and a young circus acrobat is cast aside by her Nazi officer husband. Returning to a traveling circus that is also hiding Jews, she encounters another German girl who is having to hide with a Jewish baby. Both young ladies travel with the circus as acrobats, always in fear of being discovered by the Nazis. This novel is interesting in that you learn about the traveling circus life in 1940’s Europe, but also about the dangers of being Jewish during this time. It’s also the story about the friendship between the two girls. This book is not nearly as dark as it sounds. It’s a rather light read, considering the subject matter.

8) While the City Slept by Eli Sanders: This book will stay with you for a long time. This is the true story of a horrific crime that occurred in Seattle against two young women. The culprit is a young man with a history of mental illness. The book tells the story of the young women, the troubled young man, the horrific crime, and the court-case that followed. What makes this book so powerful aside from the great writing which makes the people really unforgettable; is the fact that it is also a brutal critique of the way mental illness is treated in the United States. That’s the real crime in the book. The whole tragedy is set agains the backdrop of a judicial system, education system, medical system, and government which is not learning how to help mentally ill people and has policies that exacerbate the problem. It’s very eye-opening.

7) Dr. Neruda’s Cure for Evil:   by Rafael Yglesias:   This is a dark novel about a man who becomes a psychiatrist. Traumatized by an accident in his childhood, and then re-traumatized by his parent’s reaction to the accident, the main character tells the story of his confusing childhood in Part 1 of the book. Part 2 is about a patient that he struggles to help who re-opens his own wounds. And Part 3 is about his rather diabolical response to not being successful in that case. This is a long, dark novel about the mystery of the mind and the way traumas form our personality.

6) Holy Rus: The Re-birth of Russian Orthodoxy in the New Russia by John P. Burgess. This was a much needed piece of scholarship. I love how nuanced and sophisticated this work was. Little has been written about what the Russian Orthodox church looks like on the ground today. Books and articles tend to just focus on the unholy alliance between church leaders and Putin, or the lone remaining faithful in dying villages. Burgess fleshes this all out much more giving us a look at where Russian Orthodoxy is flourishing.It delves into dynamic small-groups, Orthodox churches that are doing very significant social service work, and the rise of Orthodox TV, radio and other media. The problems are dealt with as well, whether it’s the co-opting of orthodoxy for nationalistic purposes or the poor education levels of the average priest and how the church has had to change its training methods. The chapter on parish life was particularly fascinating.  

5) In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides.  It’s always surprising how exciting books about arctic exploration are. You would think they would be boring—-ice and cold. But the ocean, the weather, and the temperature make these stories so gripping. This is the story of 33 men who set out to be the first to sail to the North Pole in 1880. Things don’t go exactly according to plan, and the adventure gets truly crazy and grueling. It’s always amazing to see what humans can survive. Although it’s a history book, it totally reads like a novel.

4)  The Devil’s Double by Latif Yahia. This is the story of the unfortunate man who was chosen to be a body double for Uday Hussein—-Saddam Hussein’s absolutely evil, psychotic, murdering son. Latif finds himself plucked out of obscurity and having to travel around pretending he is Uday—giving speeches, attending functions, and being the target of a possible assassination. Though it all, he has to fake some kind of friendship with Uday who is truly a monster. The book is filled with unbelievable scenes of cruelty at the hands of the sadistic Uday, as well as the insanity of the extremely wealthy and decadent Hussein family. There are definitely scenes in the book that you never forget. Though it all, Latif tries to stay a good human being. This was made into a really good movie starting Dominic Cooper who does an amazing job playing both Latif and Uday.  I recommend that as well.

3) Russians: The People Behind the Power: by Gregory Feifer. The two most enigmatic countries I’ve been to (out of the 80+ I have visited) are Russia and Japan. Russia is in the news every day, it’s a nuclear power that covers half-of the world’s time zones, yet it ranks 166th in lifespan just ahead of Gambia. A third of the countries villages have less than 10 people. They drink 5 gallons of alcohol per person and also have more billionaires than any country in the world. The country has been enormously shaped by its arctic and sub-arctic location as well as it’s massive size. Feifer, who as an NPR correspondent in Russia spans the country and gives a fantastic overview of Russia today. It’s a book filled with fascinating facts.

2) The Force by Don Winslow.  Winslow is a fun novelist who has brought the drug-wars to life in previous books. With fun dialogue and a lot of action, his novels always take you into the underbelly of whatever he is writing about. ‘The Force” is about a New York Police Department officer named Denny Malone. Malone is part of an elite unit in the NYPD that takes down drug-gangs and gun-runners. They have a lot of freedom to operate and that leads to the temptation to become corrupt police officers. Winslow spent a lot of time with the NYPD in writing this novel and he captures the culture and language of the Force. As much as Malone wants to be a hero, the amount of corruption and temptation that the cops are exposed to is more than he can handle. This was a fun, exciting novel, but it was also a really eye-opening book about how policing, crime, and government work in a major U.S. city. Loved it!

Envelope please:    AND THE WINNER IS….

1) Russka:  The Novel of Russia by Edward Rutherfurd.   It’s just a coincidence that 3 of my top 10 this year had to do with Russia. They were just really rewarding books and Russia is so fascinating to me. Much like James Michener, Rutherfurd writes novels about the history of a country or place (London, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, England) using new characters and new periods of history in every chapter. This book covers 1800 years of Russian history beginning with the people that settled the forests and moving through the different eras of Russian history from the establishment of Rus, to the Mongol Invasions, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, the rise of the Communists etc. It kept my attention all the way through, I cared about all the characters, and it made the history really come alive more than a history book.

Honorable Mention: 

“Hillbilly Elegy” and “Sweet Dreams are Made of This.” Hillbilly Elegy is a memoir about the growing white underclass in places like West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. The author talks about his family, their culture, and the social problems that continue to haunt them and the region they are from. It’s a very timely book considering how much attention is being given to those “forgotten people in America.” It would be a great book to discuss in a book club.

“Sweet Dreams are Made of This” is Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics’ biography. Steward is not only half of that great 80’s pop duo, but he is a producer, filmmaker, and artist extraordinaire. He has worked with absolutely everyone in music and tells lots of stories of his time making music with some of the biggest acts in the world. He’s fun and has done lots of cool things. Of course, this book was right up my alley.

Biggest Disappointment:

Submission:  by Michael Houellebecq. This French novelists is famous for his bleak, politically-incorrect novels. This novel takes place in 2022 when an Islamic Party wins the French election. Subtle and not-so-subtle changes begin to take place. The main character Francois is a typical Houellebecq character: depressed, unable to find a reason for his own existence, devoid of spiritual belief, cynical about everything, and disgusted by the political left and right.  If this had been his first book, I probably would have loved it; but there were too many similarities between previous books. I was expecting more.

Next Year:

Well, that's it.  The big stars are heading home and the limousines are pulling out. Goodbye Todd Bridges! And thanks to the rest of you for coming!  We'll be back next year for some more book reviews in my annual Top 10 list.  Up next year:  Philip Norman’s Paul McCartney biography, a book all about Australia, Johann Hari’s global search for the real reason why everyone is depressed, anxious, and on medication, a dystopian novel about America being taken over by an Islamic regime, Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, and George Friedman predicting the coming crisis in Europe. Switch off that telly and read a book.

A More Nuanced Look at the US and Global Economy

On my last couple of visits to the USA, I've been shocked by how many people I met that are working three jobs to make ends meet. Everywhere I went, there were "Help wanted" signs, but for low-paying jobs, with short hours and no benefits. So yes, unemployment is low-but that is made irrelevant by the fact wages and benefits are even lower. Getting a job is not the challenge, it's paying for rent and health-care that is the problem.

This is why the false choice of Reaganomics/Free-Market Capitalism vs. Socialism is a useless way to frame the economic debate in the 21st Century. When the stock market goes up or corporations make a profit, that does not mean the money is getting to the average American. Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Ray Dalio talks about us really having 2 economies: One that is making enormous gains for corporations and wealthy individuals, and another that remains flat or moving downward for the vast majority of Americans. Great distinction! This makes a lot of sense to me, but unfortunately both Liberal and Conservative news outlets report on the economy as if it's 1978 and so our politics talks about economics in a Cold War Capitalism vs. Socialism framework that is totally out of date.

A few things to think about:

-The average American cannot handle an unexpected $500 bill

-The average American only has about $120,000 saved for retirement at a time when people are living into their 80's and 90's. That covers about one year of retirement.

-The stock market is on an unprecedented hot-streak, but that money is being hoarded by corporations or going to purchase stock (not getting into the main economy).

-Many jobs are being lost due to automation. This always happens, but what makes this different is that technology is not just replacing rote, service jobs or hard labor jobs. Today's Artificial Intelligence can replace journalists, lawyers, and other high-skilled, white-collar labor. These are also machines that can learn and teach themselves new skills.

-In most places, 30% of American's money goes into housing with just about every market over-priced. Some of our key cities are becoming unlivable for the normal person with normal wages.

-The number one concern of Americans is paying for health-care. Few are prepared, and advances in health care mean many elderly (and their children who have to take care of them in old age) are looking at living longer, but paying astronomical prices for medical services and convalescent care.

-College has gone up 500% over the price of inflation since 1987 while professor wages have dropped and the hiring of under-qualified and poorly paid adjunct professors is the norm.

-The US had a $4 trillion national debt when Reagan left office. It is now $22 trillion with Trump adding an unnecessary billion in the last few months to cover losses over an unnecessary trade war (socialism for farmers). $19 Trillion was the point of no return where it's not possible to pay it back (heading into Greece territory).

-Think of the amount of money each family rich or poor has to spend on technological upgrades, computers, phones etc.  In many cases, these are not optional.  This is what is required to do your work, do your banking, and stay in contact in a globalized world.  It's a large added expense that no one had in 1980.

-Due to the internet, the rich are able to see a lot more clearly what the rich have that they do not (a great recipe for revolution and populism).

-While 50% of Americans own stock, most own only a little bit of stock and get wiped out during the market crashes every 7-9 years or through fees. The stock market investors that truly win are the ones with large amounts of money and who can afford financial and tax specialists. That's where the big gains are.

The period after World War II was the fastest period of economic growth in US history and established the Middle Class. Tax rates were also very high. Elvis paid 95% in taxes and was happy to do it. Republicans like Eisenhower expected tax levels to be high and that's what helped to recover from the extreme imbalance of the 50 year rich-poor imbalance that led to the Great Depression.

When the economy tanks in the next couple of years (not "if"), or way of discussing American's economy is going to have to get a lot more sophisticated than just "Capitalism vs. Socialism" arguments. Countries that succeed in the 21st Century will value 1) an entrepreneurial environment 2) Corporate Responsibility 3) Taxes 4) Unions 5) Government involvement--especially in infrastructure and education.

Countries like Singapore, Switzerland, China, and the Scandinavian countries are ahead of the curve.  They see that it is not one thing or the other.  It's both.  Meanwhile, in the US, our political and economic discussions seem to be stuck in 1980.  The longer it takes for us to mature our discussion and make it more nuanced; the longer it will take for the US to economically recover.