Advanced Worldview Analysis - Lesson 18

Dr. Ronald Nash
Advanced Worldview Analysis
th710-18
Representatives of the Evangelical Left
Lesson Transcript

 

[00:00:03] I talk about the three members of whom I identify, in my humble opinion, as the ringleaders, as the avant garde of the evangelical left, and I call them the three amigos of the religious left. And here are their names. Now, of course, I could be wrong. I'm just the theoretician here reading books and summarizing books to the best of my ability and providing interpretations of often obscure writings to the best of my ability. The people I sometimes call the Three Amigos. And obviously there can be nothing pejorative about that title because that's based on a lovely movie based on three of my favorite Hollywood stars, Martin Short, Chevy Chase and Steve Martin. I love that movie. I never understood why it didn't win an Academy Award. So there's nothing pejorative about my calling people the Three Amigos, because that's nothing but connote love and affection and kindness on my part. So the three people that I call the three amigos of the evangelical left are Jim Wallis, Ronald Sider and Tony Campolo. I'll talk about Wallis first very briefly. I'll talk about Tony Campolo very briefly, and then I'll spend most of my time talking about Ronald Sider, who is, I think, in my humble opinion, the easiest guy of these three to really like under other circumstances. Ronald Sider. And I could probably be friends. Now, what would those circumstances be? Well, maybe one in which I'm drunk as a spouse, two or something like that. That's just Cleveland humor there. But that's Cleveland humor. Ronald Sider and I, he's a nice man. And I'm sure Tony Campolo is a nice man. Jim Wallis grew up in a evangelical home near Detroit. His parents were Plymouth brethren, which means they didn't like any church government either.

 

[00:02:07] Plymouth brethren are sort of religious anarchists. Nice people, though. I've attended Plymouth Brethren churches in my lifetime. Wallace got very angry at his parents church because and he's mentioned this in one of them in one of his three autobiographies. Now I feel very jealous because I've never written one autobiography. And to be up against a man who's written his life story three times just makes me very jealous. You must really think your life has been very important to write about it three times, I guess. So that must mean I'm a very humble person because I don't talk about my life. Wallis abandoned Christianity. Now, if I'd gotten mad at a church that I belonged to because they didn't admit black people as members and this was the case in Wallis situation, I would have just changed denominations. I'd have made it very clear to the people in that Plymouth Brethren Church that I would never darken their door again. But I wouldn't give up Christianity. That strikes me as very immature. In my humble opinion, very childish. But of course, there may have been other conditions there that would have led Jim Wallis to give up Christianity. He went to Michigan State, where he joined eventually under, I'm sure, very complex circumstances, a movement called the SD Students for a Democratic Society. All of this is in his three autobiographies. And then the SDS, along about 1972, began to get very violent eventually. I'm sure years later, years after Wallace had left them behind, they began to kill people. They began to rob banks. Because if you're not going to work, you've got to get your money. Somehow they rob banks and they blew up places. I mean, they got very violent. By this time, Wallace tells us that he had sort of recovered his Christian faith and he had gone to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which is right near the building where the Chicago Bulls have their practice field.

 

[00:04:26] I'd been right there, and I knew that Michael Jordan was right inside that building and I wanted his autograph, but they wouldn't let me in. But it's also clear that whether this was his intention with whether this was a primary intention or a secondary intention, he had never abandoned his new left convictions. And so he was busy evangelizing both students and professors at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School to what became his Sojourners movement. And as I described the cover to well, I guess I haven't on the tape yet, he began to publish what looked like to me a mimeographed little magazine that on the first issue, had a picture of Jesus on the cover in which Jesus was dressed in an American flag and was being punished in pilots judgment Hall. Clearly, the message was that Christians should hate America and probably not think too highly of capitalism either. That was the impression that I got from looking at the cover. America and capitalism were punishing Jesus. The Marxist never do that, I guess. Then the Post American magazine that Wallace published became known as Sojourners, threw a miraculous supply of money. That is interesting to speculate, but hard to trace. Wallace got enough money to move his little organization to Washington, D.C., and began to publish this very slick magazine called Sojourners and has been publishing it ever since. I think I, at least up to a few years ago, read every issue of Sojourners. I must confess, I found it very difficult to figure out why anybody would call Sojourners a Christian publication, because I never saw anything in there other than left wing opinions. But maybe I. Maybe I wasn't digging deeply enough. Now my two chapters on Jim Wallis go on to provide a whole lot of other details, and there's no need to to go into them here.

 

[00:06:32] Beginning around 1990 or 91, Wallis began to call himself a moderate, which is a significant departure from his political stances during the seventies and the eighties. Wallis still would like everybody to think he's a moderate. Well, who am I to say now? Tony Campolo? Let me compliment Tony. He is the best looking member of the religious left, no question about it. And in fact, I guess I've told you how often people have taken me for Tony Campolo. They thought that I was Tony Campolo, and they've even asked me to autograph Tony Campolo books. And of course, I always have. And I think I've told you that story. Now, Tony, of course, was for many years a professor of sociology at Eastern College near Philadelphia. You must understand that in order to get graduate degrees in sociology, during the years in which Tony studied, you had to be exposed to and you often surrendered to very hard core leftist ideas. And I've already told you about the ideas of Herbert Marcuse, who played an important influence on the new Left. And as I indicate in one of the early chapters in my book, Tony Campolo clearly sounds in at least two of his books, like a neo Marxist, like a Marxian Marxist. Now, one of the things I do to sort of summarize Tony Campolo, is associations and positions are the letters, and you see them on the screen there. F. O. B. Now, I must repeat here, that first letter is f It is no other letter. It's an F or B. I didn't say anything else. Now what the letters F all B stand for is friend of Bill. Friend of Bill. And guess which Bill we're talking about here? Bill? Who? Bill Gates.

 

[00:08:47] No, no. Bill Clinton. Now, let me give you a quote. And if Tony is listening, I hope this quote is correct. I think I memorized it when I first read it. Tony Campolo was speaking at a Washington prayer breakfast. And remember, these are always supposed to be nonpartisan events, always nonpartisan. It was a Washington prayer breakfast. And I forget the year how quickly we forget. But it was about two weeks before the whole Monica Lewinsky stuff made the papers. But this is what Tony said with respect to his personal friend Bill Clinton at this prayer breakfast, this nonpartisan, he said, ladies and gentlemen. Without doubt, President Clinton is the most godly spirit filled man ever to be president of the United States. Let me repeat that. Bill Clinton is clearly. The most spiritual, godly man to be president of the United States. That's two weeks before the Monica Lewinsky stuff. But Tony wasn't finished. And again, Tony, if I get this wrong, you write me a letter and correct me. Tony went on to say, if anybody could convince me that Bill Clinton had committed adultery in the White House. So so I hope he said this, if anybody could eventually the bill. Now, let me pause right there. Does that mean that Bill Clinton had committed adultery during his presidency? I'm trying to parse his words here. During his presidency. Well, we know he did. Or did he mean that President Clinton had committed adultery in the literal building? Well, we know he had done that. But what's the rest of the sentence? If anybody could prove to me that Bill Clinton had committed adultery in the White House? I would be very disappointed. That strikes me as a less than powerful expression there.

 

[00:10:56] I would be very disappointed. Now, more appropriate terms would be I would be outraged. But you see, he's the most godly spirit filled man ever to be president. So he wouldn't do anything like that, I guess. I have at home an interesting tape, videotape of Bill Clinton and Tony Campolo leaving the funeral of Ron Brown. I should have brought it tonight because I haven't used it in some time. And Tony Campolo is telling Clinton some jokes and they're coming out of this funeral and Clinton is laughing to beat the ban and all of a sudden he sees a video camera and he knows all of a sudden the jig is up and the whole world is going to know that he really didn't care about the death of Ron Brown. So just like that, Clinton's expression changes and he starts crying. He wipes the tears off of his eyes until he finally gets beyond the view of the camera. And you see all of this, you know, he's looking behind him. And as soon as the cameras can't get him anymore, then he's back to joking. And Tony Campolo was asked about this. In fact, I'm the guy that wrote Rush Limbaugh who showed this. And I said, I can name the guy that was the ball hit a guy. No, I said, I can give you the name of the handsome, bald headed guy who was walking with President Clinton when he was caught laughing outside of Ron Brown's funeral. His name is Tony Campolo. Rush mentioned that I think a day or two later. But Tony said and people were asked him about this and he said, well, you don't understand. Bill Clinton was really hurt. He was really sad. And I was trying to boost his spirit and I was giving him material from my book.

 

[00:12:33] Thank God it's Friday. You know, I don't there must be funny stuff in there because Bill Clinton laughed a lot. Bill Clinton, I'm sorry. Tony Campolo is also an f0g. Now, this is a little more complicated. No one can question. The Campolo thought Bill Clinton was a real friend of his. FMG stands for Friend of Gays. Now, Tony, pull his position with respect to homosexuality is a little more complicated. For one thing, every time the issue of homosexuality comes up in Tony Campolo, his presence, he says he's against it. He's against actual sexual relations between same gendered people. Now, of course, Tony has to say that otherwise evangelicals would lose all respect for his ministry. I mean, if he was perceived as pro homosexual, the problem is, after the mandatory statement that he's opposed to same gender sex, he embarks on whatever crusade it is that supports homosexuals. And I give you the details of all of that in my book. Obviously, no sensible Christian. Wants other people to prey upon homosexuals or lesbians. As many people have put it. We may hate the sin, but we love the sinner and we have to do a better job of making clear to homosexuals and lesbians that our opposition to their methods of doing certain things flows really from a desire for them to find the best things in life for them. Somebody did some statistics, some research, and found that the typical homosexual with AIDS dies at the age of 42. The typical homosexual without AIDS dies at the age of 45. Could be off a year or two. The point there is this It's not AIDS or HIV that is killing homosexuals. It's homosexuality that is killing them. And there are plenty of good books out there that will help people understand the rest of that statement.

 

[00:15:08] Well, that's enough for Tony Campolo. We mentioned his neo Marxism. I would say this, and I want to say it in my opinion. In my opinion, Tony Campolo is too theologically liberal for my positions. I believe I could be mistaken. I believe that his view of the Bible is in the Orthodox. I do not believe he accepts the inerrancy of the Bible. I could be wrong, but this is what I've read. And I do believe that his understanding of special revelation is in the Orthodox. He does not equate the Bible with the Word of God. He equates the Word of God with certain kinds of subjective experiences that people have when they read the Bible. I think that's a very non-evangelical position. I also believe it could be wrong that Tony Campolo is an inclusive ist. I talked about that position just this morning in my apologetics class. Inclusive ism is the belief that there will be millions of people in heaven who never heard about Jesus and who never believed in Jesus. That's not my understanding of the biblical teaching about salvation. So even though I agree that Tony Campolo is the best looking member of the religious left, he and I have a lot of important differences. Well, you can read the rest in the book. Now, Ronald Sider, really nice guy. Tony, I'm sure, is a nice guy. Ronald Snyder first came to national attention as the leader of a movement called Evangelicals for McGovern. That would be the 1972 presidential election in which George McGovern ran against Richard Nixon. And if this was Nixon's second run for the presidency. Nixon just squeaked through in 1968 running against Hubert Humphrey. And that was all related to the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson.

 

[00:17:16] But in 1972, George McGovern, who was the most liberal Democratic candidate for president up to that time, George McGovern was a new left extremist. And Nixon cleaned his clock. Really did. I think McGovern may have won one or two states, but then it was during that election that the Watergate thing happened and the cover up happened. And of course, within a matter of a very short time, Nixon had to resign and Gerald Ford became president and so on and so forth. Ronald Sider started an organization shortly after evangelicals for McGovern called Evangelicals for Social Action. His pitch then was and I guess that's the best way the only evangelicals who really cared about the poor were those who were liberals. I used to meet with my friends from other colleges and other organizations, and they all had the impression that if you cared about the poor, you had to be a liberal, you had to be a left winger. Now, you must also understand this about the political stance of evangelicals during the fifties, sixties and seventies. Let me describe it in two words political illiteracy. The typical evangelical didn't know anything about government, political theory or economics. The typical evangelical that included a whole lot of ministers. A whole lot of professors, A whole lot of laypeople. I think evangelicals were, to a great extent, illiterate on all of this because of fundamentalism. Their fundamentalism taught them that this world is not our home. We're just passing through. And so we'll just leave the whole kit and caboodle to the devil and the Democrats. They didn't. I did not plan to say that. Do you understand? But that's not untrue, is it? They said, we'll just leave it all to the devil and the Democrats, and they didn't care.

 

[00:19:33] Now they voted. But a lot of people don't realize this. The majority of evangelicals in the sixties and seventies were Southern Democrats. That shocks a lot of people. They were Democrats in the South. You've got to go back and realize how many members of the Democratic Party were conservative in the 5060s and seventies. A lot of them were. But as the Democrats began to move more and more towards the left, many of those conservative Democrats became, guess what? They became Republicans. I think what probably awakened the evangelical social conscience. In a conservative direction. More than anything else was Francis Schaefer. And that was primarily due to Schaefer's emphasis upon the evils of abortion, where he convinced so many of us that we should even be willing to pay the price of civil disobedience and go to jail and maybe even suffer in order to remove this abomination from the planet, the abomination of abortion, which, of course, quickly became the darling child of the Democrats. Okay, but let's get back on track. Evangelicals for social action I often. Now, they've changed the name, but they've kept the letters. They changed the name sometime in the last three or four or five years. It's still ESEA, but I forgotten what ESEA now stands for. But basically it was a left wing, a liberal social action group on Christian college campuses, so that if you want to know who were the liberals among the professors in the student body, just go to an essay meeting and write down the names and you know who it was. In 1977, Ronald Sider published a book called and Notice the Words Here published. There is some question how much of it he wrote, but he published it. It was called Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.

 

[00:21:40] I think I know the name of one of his ghostwriters for that first edition, because that rascal who taught economics at Gordon College, that rascal was given a chance to review a possible book of mine called Social Justice in the Christian Church. And he did a hatchet job on it. He never told the editor of that particular publishing company that he probably had a little conflict there because he was a ghost writer for the book that I was. And I really wasn't criticizing. I really wasn't attacking Sider. I was just offering an alternative to Siders political liberalism. I didn't attack Sider. I save that for later. No, I'm just kidding there. Now, rich Christians in an age of hunger went through four editions. I assume that meant four different ghostwriters? I don't know. I don't know. But it became increasingly less strident. For example, in the first edition of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. There was a chapter titled or there was a section titled Is God a Marxist? And I'll tell you the answer of that section to that question is Yes, God is a marxist. That was one of the first publications to talk about the Jubilee Principle in Leviticus 25, which we took care of already. It was standard left wing evangelicalism for the seventies in at least one Christian college that I will not name located somewhere in the state of Illinois and can't remember where. Or so I understand, about four departments in that Christian college used rich Christians as a required textbook. And for years, a lot of graduates of that very well known Christian college, a lot of graduates came out of there thoroughly committed to Ronald Snyder's left wing worldview, or what I understand to be a left wing worldview.

 

[00:23:53] In 1980 or 81, Snyder wrote a book in concert with someone else on nuclear pacifism. Let me define nuclear pacifism. This is the belief that no nation should use nuclear weapons even to defend itself. Now, I hope I'm not misrepresenting Snyder's position, but certainly whether that last sentence is totally accurate or not, that's what most people got from the book, including all of its supporters. I remember going around the talk show circuit during the early eighties, either a week before or a week after somebody would be commenting on Snyder's nuclear pacifist position. Listen. Even very important Christian leaders became nuclear pacifist. Billy Graham became a nuclear pacifist and said so proudly, Jon Stewart became a nuclear pacifist and said so proudly. This was the view or how it was interpreted anyway, that nations like America would voluntarily. Disarm themselves of all of their defensive nuclear weapons. And cast ourselves on the mercy of those God fearing folks in the Soviet Union. Now, Jimmy Carter was, of course, the president at this time. Just suppose that Jimmy Carter had said, well, we're going to follow Dr. Snyder's advice here. We're going to destroy all of our nuclear weapons or we're going to disarm them, and then we'll call Mr. Gorbachev or whoever. It wasn't Gorbachev yet. We'll call whoever answers the red phone in Moscow and tell them that we no longer have any nuclear weapons. Who was it? Brezhnev. Brezhnev? Yeah. Well, one of those nice guys. What would have happened? Let's be realistic here. Remember the new left? They don't care about realism. Don't care about it. What would have happened if the United States had indeed unilaterally disarmed itself of all of our nuclear weapons? Well, we had gotten a call from Moscow, and the president of the Soviet Union would have said, Mr.

 

[00:26:10] Carter. Mr. Carter, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is congratulations for getting rid of all your nuclear weapons. The bad news is, within 3 hours, our occupying troops will land at your airports. This is not funny. Now, Sider himself in this book. I think it's called nuclear holocaust and something else. And look, this is serious stuff. These people all paid us as nuclear wildlife weirdoes. Put this in your notes and give me credit. Nuclear weapons are bad. Okay. A nuclear holocaust is bad. Not a favor of that stuff, but my goodness, we got to defend ourselves. And now that we have the benefit of hindsight, we know that we did the right thing. The Soviet Union would never have collapsed in 1991. If liberals had occupied the presidency after Jimmy Carter, never would have happened. So Snyder admits that we would have been invaded. And here's this advice. He says, Imagine that you're living where in Orlando or New York City and playing after playing of occupying Soviet troops of landed. And they're all standing at attention with their submachine guns like this insider bids Christians to walk up to the conquering Soviet and put flowers in the barrels of their guns, put flowers in the barrels of their guns if they can. If they can get that close. Yes. If they can get that close. Somebody who remembers Snyder's book better than I do says that even Snyder admits that given a communist invasion of the United States, a minimum of 2 million Christians would die. But in the service of worldwide peace, that's a small price to pay. Snyder doesn't want the world to know about that book. Now insiders favor he has been consistently pro-life. Unfortunately, he dilutes the pro-life cause by continually mixing it in with other things that really defuze the pro-life position.

 

[00:28:29] But he too, claims to be a moderate. Now, somebody has asked here, have there not been changes in siders position? Yes. And I talk about them in my book. It became public about 1994, 1995. He gave an address at Wheaton College. Here's what Snyder said at a chapel talk. He said, I was wrong. Now, who's telling this to the thousands of graduates of the very college in whose chapel he was speaking? I was wrong. That means the first edition was wrong. The second edition was wrong. The third edition was wrong. And now comes the fourth edition. And here's what Snyder says. If Christians want to help the poor, they must become capitalists. Oh, wow. I heard somebody in this very classroom say, use that expression, another bald headed man, as I recall. Now, there's one problem, and I think I've already mentioned this. Even though I'm pleased to hear Sider say finally that Christians must become capitalists if they want to help the poor. And notice when this comes. This comes after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This comes after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall Siders. A little late, isn't he? This is like a prophet. Two days after the rapture, the church saying, I told you Jesus was coming. Calm down there. But here's the problem with Snyder's position. And he and I have carried on a public debate of where this he does not know what capitalism is. And I've told him this when Seider talks about capitalism, he's talking about big government interventionism. It's just a watered down socialism. He still doesn't know what capitalism is. And now, of course, he has been slandering me. He has in print. He really has. In one of his publications. He slandered me by calling me.

 

[00:30:45] Do I dare say it? He has called me a libertarian. He's called me a libertarian when all he's got to do is read Freedom, justice in the state or social justice in the Christian church. And he will know why I'm an enemy of libertarianism. They are radical anti statists. I am a moderate, anti statist. Okay, I've got an overhead here. It's a cartoon. I want you to look at this cartoon and I'll describe it for the people listening by tape. The cartoonist is Chuck S.A. ASAP. Why? In the first scene, we have a bunch of children in a school lunchroom, it looks like. And two friends, two young boys who are friends are talking. And one of them says, I remember I used to get hungry and you would give me something to eat. Then we come to the second panel and these two buddies are having a night out together in the home of one of them. And the same kid says, I remember the time I got kicked out of my house and you gave me a place to stay. Oh, he's not saying this. This is what the caption is. He gets kicked out of his house. His friend gives him a place to stay. Then the same kid is sick in bed. His friend is there to give him orange juice or something. He says, I remember when I was very sick and you took care of me. Now, in the fourth panel, the friend has become a computer expert. Got a mustache. And the other little kid who had always been helped is now a homeless person in the snow looking through the window. And he says, Then you became an activist and got the government to do all of that.

 

[00:32:38] Got the government to do all of that. Then we see this homeless man walking away and he's walking past signs that say food stamp office, government shelter, public health center. And the line says, I thought you liked me. As soon as you turn to the government, that personal element which helped me when I was growing up is totally lost. And now I get no help at all. That's what liberals did. They cared as kids. Then they said, Let the government do it. And now these people get no help. Now I have two closing statements here. Just sort of bring this message to a close. This overhead is titled The Arrogance of the Evangelical Left. And I don't mean that in any kind of triumphalist sense. I really don't. And if I'm using the wrong words, then forgive me and help me. But I'm saying this out of a real sense of grief and loss. Liberals. Here are the points. Liberals. I mentioned this when I talked to high school and college kids. If you go to a liberal college, your liberal professors are going to say they're more spiritual than you because they care for poor and oppressed people. And because you're conservative, you don't care for poor and oppressed people or secondly, liberals. And this could also be liberals teaching at so-called evangelical colleges and seminaries. They think they're more virtuous than you because they vote for liberal candidates. And we all know that liberal candidates really care for poor and oppressed people. I mean, look at Tom Daschle. If ever there's a man in the history of the human race who cares about poor and oppressed people, it's Tom Daschle. Three, They're more prophetic. The liberals are more prophetic, the new conservatives, because the biblical prophets did what they are doing now.

 

[00:34:40] That makes me mad. Let me just This is the first time I've been mad tonight. These guys and gals love to compare themselves to the Old Testament prophets. Why? Because the Old Testament prophets cared for poor and oppressed people. Let's break that analogy. Listen to me. The prophets of the Old Testament were enemies of who? The rich and the powerful. Liberals. Statists who ran the government's. Ahab. Jezebel. Those were the statists of the days when the prophets did their business. Now who are the allies of the evangelical left? They're the statists of today. The analogy of the statists today would have been the Ahab's and the JEZEBEL'S of Elijah's time. We have just had an Ahab and a Jezebel in the White House. These guys are not representative of the Old Testament prophets, but that's what they think. And then what about you? They think these liberals who teach at so-called evangelical colleges, they think that you conservatives are wicked, evil, sinful, selfish, because you vote for people like Ronald Reagan and George W Bush. Your greedy, money grubbing capitalists rip off pigs. That's what you are. Every time you vote for a conservative candidate, you prove your wickedness and your materialism and your selfishness. I can still remember the day I was and I forget where it was. But we were asked all of us who were participants in this conference were asked to stand and identify ourselves, and I know this will seem a little rough for the T for the taping audience that's listening. But so help me. This happened. Everybody went around and identified, gave their name and their position and so on. And then a Ron Snyder groupie stood up. I don't think he even gave his name. And with utter on moderated arrogance, he said, I am a peace and justice Christian, and sat down.

 

[00:37:27] Oh, man. It's a good thing I'm sanctified. Good thing I'm sanctified. Can you imagine a man, a dumb kid who has never done anything in his life, sitting up and by casting judgment on everybody else there in the audience, he implies that he's the only person in the room who is a supporter of peace and justice. And the fact is, given his political convictions, he's actually an enemy of peace and justice. If that person is still alive and hears this tape, call me. The number is five, five, five, three, two, three, two. Okay, just give me a ring. Let me tell you, if you're still as foolish as you were back then. Liberals always do. Good. Let me give you a little model here. A little mantra. It is always easier to be a liberal than it is to be a conservative. Put this down, because all that's required to be a liberal is to have certain feelings. Feeling nothing more than feelings. But to be a conservative today, not been the fifties. In the sixties, that was a different world then. But to be a conservative today, you got to think. Feelings won't do it. You've got to ask yourself what will be the long range consequences of this? But already the lines are starting for the campaign of 2002. The liberal image guys are already coming up with their slogans and their lies that if we make these tax cuts permanent, the tax cuts of 2001 permanent, we're going to destroy the Social Security system. No sense of response of whatever lie will work, in my opinion. Now you know that I am a recipient of Social Security funds and I want to thank you. I want to thank you because you understand I didn't talk about the chapter about Social Security.

 

[00:39:50] There is no such thing as a Social Security trust fund for anybody. A lot of foolish Americans think that they've all got a Social Security account somewhere buried in the sand somewhere. And when they reach whatever year they're going to retire, the government just starts sending them their money. No, this is a pyramid scheme. This is what it is. And in the old days when it started, let's say we're talking 20 people for every person receiving Social Security, there were 20 people paying into it. You understand back when this thing started and then the ratio began to slow. And a few years ago, it was for people paying in for every person drawing out. Today, I understand it's 3 to 1, three people paying in, to one person taking out. And by the time you people think you're ready to collect your Social Security, it will be 2 to 1. What's going to happen here? Well, something's going to have to give. There just will not. But I'll be dead by then. But since I may not see you again. Thank you. Thank you for your contributions to the Social Security system. Do you realize with honorable, decent men in Congress, we could have fixed this decades ago by making it private, by coercing people to make contributions. But people could control where that money would go, where that money would go. If you just put it in outrageously big IRAs. Now, the government took money from me for 45 years. They're still taking it. What am I talking about? They're still taking it. They give it to me and they take it back. They do. I pay taxes on 35% on my Social Security payment. Yeah, 85% is taxable income. If. No, listen to me.

 

[00:42:09] If this government had 45 years ago. Forced me to put my money into dependable private banks, IRAs, mutual funds, whatever else. Do you want to know how much money I would have to leave to my children when I die? Right now, I don't have a penny. If I die tomorrow, all I get is a $255 burial fund. That's all I get. $255. And I may be wrong on that. All of the money they taken from me from 45 years will be gone if my wife and I are killed in a plane crash or an automobile accident. Now, if the government had privatized all of this. Do you know how much money I would have right now in the bank? I'd have over $1,000,000. And you know what? When I die, that would still be there for my children and my grandchildren. $1,000,000. And you figure Compound interest. Compound interest, man. Why can't the average American understand that? Well, of course, when you get to be my age, it's too late. Too late now. I don't want to die because I want to get my money back. I'm so mad that they've taken it for all of these years. How long do I have to live to get it back? Well, I'll let you know next week. I can't figure that out. I won't if you die. I'll never forgive you. I'm talking to myself here. The trouble is, folks, with your generation and my grandchildren's generation, I don't know what'll happen. But when it happens, please remember that it was the liberals who destroyed the Social Security system. It'll have to come out of current income. That means working laborers will have to be taxed at it probably a 40 or 45% rate to keep the crummy system going.

 

[00:44:19] Thank you for listening to this lecture. Brought to you by biblical training, dawg. Your prayers and financial support enable us to provide a biblical and theological education that all people around the world can access. Blessings. As you continue to study and live out your faith and as you grow in your relationship with the Lord.