Rejuvenating Christian foundations should help stop moral decay

People well known to the police apparently live in luxury with no visible means of support or explanation as to how they maintain their lifestyles.

And it seems to me that as a society we have become complacent about this issue, in some cases, the media has glamourised it.

A few weeks ago I called for a sense of outrage about what is happening in our midst. And I pledge that if Federal Tax authorities can assist in tracking and taxing the flow of money that sustains the lifestyles of these drug barons then everything that can be done will be done. We stand ready, anxious to assist.

We have such a rich heritage. But in so many ways it is being run down. The values which it has given us - respect for life, respect for others, for property, respect for family - seem to be undermined in many ways.

What should we do?

At this point it is usual for some leading churchman from some well known denomination to appear in the media to call on the government to fix things.

I do not want to suggest that there are no initiatives the government should take. And what government can do, it should do. But I do want to suggest something much more radical and far reaching. I want to suggest that a recovery of faith would go a long way to answering this challenge. A government should never get into religious endeavors. But if our church leaders could so engage people as to lead them to genuine faith we should be much richer and stronger for it.

The Bible tells the story of the Prophet Elijah who got despondent about the state of decay all around him. He was running for his life. He fled out to the wilderness. He sat under a juniper tree and asked to die. He felt alone and let down. He had no supporters. He thought he was the only person left that was true.

But the still small voice of God came to him and lifted him and told him that there were still thousands that had not lowered the knee to the spiritual and moral decay all around him. (1 Kings, Ch 19)

There are many that have not, in their hearts, acquiesced to the kind of decay which is apparent around us. They do not believe it is right. They earnestly pray for the expansion of faith and yearn for higher standards.

They will get up tomorrow and go to their places of worship in suburbs and towns across the country, affirm the historic Christian faith, and go to work on Monday as law-abiding citizens who want their marriages to stay together, their children to grow up to be healthy and useful members of society, and their homes to be happy. They care deeply about our society and where it is going.

These people will not get their names in the media. They will not be elected to anything. They will not be noisy lobbyists. But they are the steadying influence, the ballast, to our society when it shakes with moral turbulence. They give strength and stability and they embody the character and the traditions of our valuable heritage. It is their inner faith which gives them strength. Our society won't work without them.

All citizens share in the heritage and the blessings that heritage brought to our country, something for which we can all give thanks. We should not take these blessings for granted. We should not become complacent. We should genuinely give thanks because we have been genuinely blessed. And each, to our own ability, should nurture the values which were so important in bringing us to where we are today and which we need so badly to take us on.