Author: Tim Jennings

Last week, I blogged about how the loss of love in a society always brings a subsequent rise in fear and selfishness, resulting in all kinds of destructive behaviors, including violence.

This week, I want to follow up and describe how applying biblical principles can create an atmosphere in which love can grow and society can heal.

The biblical principles are design laws — the laws upon which reality is built and constructed to operate. Some of these laws have already been realized by many people who have applied them in limited ways. For example, the law of love, being the principle of giving upon which life is based, says that all living things must give in order to live. Some ecologists have recognized this truth and advocate for the preservation of species and habitats in order for the health and benefit of the planet’s environment as a whole. For instance, if we destroy enough plants and trees (such as the great rainforests), the planet’s ability to recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen is diminished, leading to additional ecological problems. Thus, understanding design law can lead to practices in which life and health are sustained.

In a similar way, a healthy government would be one that applied God’s design principles in order to enhance the opportunity for love among its citizens to grow and, thus, for life and its society to flourish. Enabling selfishness, on the other hand, which takes from others without regard for their well-being — exploitation of the environment, etc. — would destroy not only love, but also gravely impair the systems of giving upon which life is built.

I want to emphasize here that no legislation can change hearts, create good character, instill consideration for others into hearts and minds, nor make immature people into mature ones. However, a healthy government can create an atmosphere in which love, health, and happiness are not artificially hindered and in which people are free to pursue these things.

The United States articulated these principles in its Declaration of Independence: a human right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We must “pursue” happiness, because having happiness itself is not a right; however, the pursuit of happiness is our right. This is because happiness is the byproduct of healthiness in all domains — physical, mental, relational, and spiritual. Thus, one of the problems with people’s pursuit of happiness is that not many have understood that happiness is the outgrowth of healthiness. To the degree a person is unhealthy in any domain, their ultimate happiness is undermined. If one chooses to use their freedom to break the laws of health — eat nothing but potato chips, for instance — it is not possible to experience lasting happiness.

Failing to realize this, many people, instead of making choices that harmonize with what is actually healthy, violate the laws of health, substituting pleasure-seeking for happiness, typically leading to further violations of the laws of health. This, in turn, unavoidably results in greater loss of health, and they become less happy.

That’s why it is important for a government to teach its citizens the truth about what is healthy and to create an atmosphere of opportunity for individuals to maximize their autonomy in the pursuit of healthiness in all domains and, thereby, experience happiness. Each of the suggestions below are the applications of godly principles to create opportunity for people to become healthy, including relationally healthy — that is, in how we treat each other. In so doing, society becomes healthier, because the individuals who make up that society become healthier.

Two Principles

John F. Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

This simple but profound statement advances two principles of God’s kingdom:

• The principle of truth — healthy relationships and societies require healthy people, and healthy people are able to govern themselves. That means we must start with ourselves first! Jesus said, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3 GNB). We must apply God’s principles in our own lives first, before we can make effective changes in the world around us.
• The principle of the law of love — seek to give of yourself to better society, to uplift others, to improve your neighborhood, community, and nation. This isn’t a call for advancing legislation, but for loving your fellow citizens. Jesus said, “Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands — all that you can hold. The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you” (Luke 6:38 GNB). This is the joy of the law of love! The more you give, the more you receive. We are transformed by our beliefs, actions, and conduct: If we love more, we become more loving people; conversely, if we hate more, we become more hateful people.

President Kennedy was advancing the principles of truth and love: Be truthful with oneself, dealing with oneself first, and love something greater than the self. These principles are dying in societies today. Truth is being replaced with opinion: “That is his truth or her truth” (rather than the truth) or with hyperbole or outright lies. We are being told to accept these falsehoods as if they were the reality. People are being conditioned to value deceit and distortion in the pursuit of advancing their interests over the interest of others. As a result, love is dying in our societies.

So, the first change that could be made to create a healing atmosphere is for the message of truth and love to be promoted by our leaders. But, this requires that the people actually want to hear the truth! The apostle Paul warned that many would not want leaders to speak the truth: “A time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths” (2 Timothy 4:3, 4 NLT). Myths are fantasies, falsehoods, lies — people will want to be told lies and will therefore elect people to tell them what they want to hear.

If we want a healthy society, we must become lovers of truth and be willing to deal with the truth, even if it is an inconvenient truth that gets in the way of our desires. Why? Because we can never avoid the truth; we can only delay the day we deal with it. And the longer we delay dealing with the truth, the worse it will be when we are finally confronted with the reality of it.

Sadly, though, many prefer leaders who will tell them what they want to hear. We will never heal our hearts with lies, and healthy societies require healthy people. The reason we have so many leaders who struggle to speak truth is that the people don’t want to hear the honest truth — they prefer lies and fantasy. Only when we become honest with ourselves and hunger for the truth as a people will we begin electing leaders who speak truthfully to us.

The second principle that could bring health to our country is for leaders to promote, and the people to embrace, an attitude of service — of altruism, of giving to better the nation — promoting the principles of each person giving of themselves for the betterment of their community and nation as a whole.

This was the attitude of the “Greatest Generation” — the generation that endured World War II. With a high value placed on service to the greater good, that generation pulled together in ways we don’t often see today. Those who didn’t serve in the military still embraced the mission by collecting materials for the war effort, buying war bonds, or taking up new jobs to help the cause. The value of service to a greater good was so important to that generation that many young men, who were found physically unfit to join the armed services, often became depressed and suicidal.

Today’s leaders, likewise, need to advance the value of service and stop promoting an entitlement mentality, which teaches that each person is owed something by their government, They need to teach, rather, that each person is valuable to the nation and has abilities to contribute to the greater good. The people must be taught that the nation will invest in you because you are valuable to the health of the nation as you give back to the nation (the law of love in action — and of course we compassionately care for those incapable of contributing or caring for themselves).

Practical Steps

Policies could be implemented that would reward such service, while not compelling it through legislation. I was the recipient of a U.S. Army scholarship; they paid my way to medical school and, in return, I proudly served in the Army for a number of years. Likeminded programs could be developed to link scholarships, or student loan repayment, with service to the country — not just military service, but any service that helps the nation, such as working in clinics in underserved areas, environmental clean-up, infrastructure improvement, or a multiplicity of other activities.

Educational scholarships tied to national service build character, values, and solidify emotional ties to the nation. Moreover, a person’s sense of accomplishment is enhanced, their integrity improves, and as they exercise their abilities, those abilities grow stronger (this is the law of exertion, another design law: If you want something to get stronger, you must exercise it — if you don’t use it, you lose it). So, as people care for others, giving to help promote a larger goal, they exercise their altruistic abilities, which also calms fear emotions. They become better citizens, and society gets healthier as a result.

The application of the principle of truth in our society would require that we also be honest in science and education, which would lead us to teach truthfully the scientific evidence of Creation and the design laws of God that were built into nature.

The perpetual and zealous fraud that is pervasive in scientific circles today promotes the practice of deceit and denies reality. Professors who bring forth scientific evidence that refutes the godless theory of origins are punished by losing grants and research funds, termination from their positions, and basically blackballed in the scientific community. This is wrong.

True science doesn’t live in fear of evidence. Truth has nothing to fear by close investigation; it can stand up to scrutiny. Only lies and falsehood fear close inspection and examination of divergent points of view. This is why the Christianity of the Dark Ages feared science so much, because many of the teachings of the persecuting church of that time were false. It couldn’t stand up to the evidence and, thus, the church used imperial power to punish dissenters.

Yet today, the scientific community is doing the exact same thing. They have a belief system that is being overthrown by the evidence, and instead of embracing the evidence, they use imperial power to punish, ostracize, and silence their critics.

Our educational system is infected with the practice of distorting facts, denying evidence, and teaching people to accept lies as if they were true. Thus, critical reasoning is undermined in generation after generation, which impairs the ability to differentiate between actual evidence and opinion. People tend to rely on some expert to tell them what to think, rather than learning to think for themselves.

But a healthy society doesn’t tell people what to think; it teaches it citizens how to think. We cannot teach critical reasoning if we practice the denial of evidence and punish those who bring forth evidence that contradicts the politically correct view.

To that end, another action that could be taken to improve society is to start teaching an evidence-based understanding of reality. Thus, in schools, evidence would be presented as it is, and different theories would be freely discussed, leading people to form their own conclusions based on that which is most consistent with the evidence. As the Bible teaches, we should allow “every person… to be fully persuaded in their own mind” (Romans 14:5).

This would not be teaching a religion; rather, it would be teaching the science of reality and allowing the evidence to speak for itself. And the evidence is unequivocal in terms of a higher intelligence. Such evidence includes the coded information found in the DNA of all living organisms. No logical explanation exists for how such information came about without an intelligence behind it (in fact, it would be a violation of the second law of thermodynamics for complex information coding to organize itself randomly. And all life requires this coded information). We will not have a healthy society until people are willing to be truthful, and at the very bedrock of our educational system is a deeply rooted lie that corrupts our children, distorting their ability to think critically and accurately.

The Critical Reality of Reasoning

Our goal in education should not be indoctrination into politically correct ideologies, but to teach critical reasoning and let each person be fully persuaded in their own minds. This means we show respect for others who have a different opinion — we leave them free and don’t retaliate against them or seek to silence them.

Foundational to critical reasoning are trustworthy standards to test our ideas and perspectives against. These standards are the eternal, unchanging design laws of God built right into nature. These design laws should be taught to our children, including:

• Laws of physics
• Laws of mathematics
• Laws of health
• Law of love (the circle of giving upon which all life is built)
• Law of liberty (love only grows in the atmosphere of freedom, and violating liberty damages love, incites rebellion, and destroys individuality)
• Law of worship (a.k.a. modeling; we become like what we admire and worship)
• Law of exertion (strength comes from exercise; if you don’t use it, you lose it)
• Law of restoration (after expending a resource, one must rest and recover to have more to expend)
• Law of sowing and reaping
• Law of love overcoming fear
• Law of fear (fear destroys love and incites selfishness)
• Law of truth

Yes, sick societies can become healthy, but only if the people embrace and apply the laws upon which life is built to operate. One cannot have health while in violation of the laws of health; thus, only as we move into harmony as a people, with God’s design laws, will society ever heal.

This means we present truth, in love, and leave others free. We teach reality — truth — because life actually works that way; we promote the values of equality, altruism, service, and the greater good, teaching that each person has the responsibility to govern themselves, to develop their own character, and to practice the principles of health in all they do — because life works that way.

So to this generation, for your health, for life, for love, and for your happiness I resound: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

In the aftermath of the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump and other leaders have expressed concerns that these acts are linked to mental illness. Some mental health professionals have been quick to point out that the data does not support such an assertion as more than 75 percent of mass shootings are committed by people without a history of mental illness.

If one allows the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) to be the measure of mental illness and disease, then these mental health professionals are correct: Most mass shootings are not committed by those with diagnosable mental illnesses.

If, however, we use a different standard of health, a different lens to measure mental illness, then the president is correct. And what is that standard? Love — the selfless, compassionate regard for the welfare of others. If our standard of health is God’s design for life, the principle of love upon which the Creator built life to operate, then selfishness is seen as sickness and exploitation and injury to others is seen as pathology.

Desperate for Answers

It’s understandable that frightened people want an explanation for why violence and mass shootings are increasing. Some argue that these violent occurrences are mostly due to easy access to guns. However, guns have been easily accessible in America since its independence, yet the frequency of such violence is increasing; mass shootings are a problem of the past few decades.

Others argue that the problem is racism, but racism and class discrimination were much more pervasive and openly oppressive in America 75 to 100 years ago than today, and such mass violence was not occurring in our society then. I am not suggesting that racism doesn’t exist, but the data does not support the claim that it is the cause of this increase in violence. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, during 2012–15, the rate of white-on-white violent crime (12.0 per 1,000 white persons) was about four times higher than black-on-white violent crime (3.1 per 1,000). The rate of black-on-black violent crime (16.5 per 1,000 black persons) was more than five times higher than white-on-black violent crime (2.8 per 1,000).[1]

No — racism is just another manifestation of the root problem causing the increase in violence: the lack of love and the rise in selfishness.

Something has changed in America; an insidious attack on the bedrock principles woven into the fabric of this society has occurred — and it is the true reason for the rise in mass shootings. There are ideas, practices, and policies that have taken root in America that undermine love, increase selfishness, degrade concern for others, and are thereby the actual cause of the increase in violence we are experiencing.

All Symptoms Point to One Disease

I propose that the rise in mass shootings is a symptom of a movement advancing in America that undermines integrity, personal responsibility, moral decency, basic civic responsibility, and, ultimately, love for others.

This rise in selfishness, a lack of regard for others, is evidenced not only in these mass shootings, but also in recent online video postings. For instance, take Cori Ward, a 30-year-old mother who was arrested in Florida after she posted a video of her daughter licking a tongue depressor in a doctor’s office and then putting it back in the container with unused depressors; she posted the video with the title: “Don’t tell me how to live my life.”[2]

Or the viral video seen by more than 11 million people of a 17-year-old girl opening a container of Blue Bell ice cream, licking the ice cream, putting the lid back on, and then placing the container back on the shelf. [3]

Yes — love is decreasing and selfishness is on the rise!

Jesus, speaking about this time in human history, said:

Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12 NLT).

The apostle Paul said:

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1–4 NIV84).

The real reason violence is on the rise is because love is on the decline. People are becoming more self-centered and are losing concern for anything other than self.

Recent studies have demonstrated that narcissism has steadily increased in the United States since the 1970s, with each subsequent class of college freshmen scoring higher on narcissism rating scales than the class before.[4] This rise in selfishness, this “me-first” mentality, is rife in society today and heralds the death of love for our fellow human beings — and all types of violence are on the rise.

So what is destroying love and increasing selfishness?

The Bible teaches that:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:18 NIV84).

Love and fear are inversely proportional; as love increases, fear decreases — and as fear increases, love decreases. The more fear we experience, the more quickly we see threats, real or imagined, and take actions designed to make us feel safe. Rather than searching ourselves to identify and overcome our deficiencies in character, fear focuses our minds on self-protection, making us look outward to identify potential threats. This can lead to the projection of one’s own shortcomings onto others and can cause greater division and loss of love for our fellow human beings.

Trigger Point

Why is fear and selfishness rising and love declining, with its subsequent increase in violence? I would like to suggest several factors.

Historically, in America, the national consciousness focused on three other-than-self objects; these virtues were considered so vital that it was worth sacrificing self to defend. These big three were love for God, love for family, and love for country. These three objects — God, family, country — were promoted as being greater than self and worthy of our sacrifice to support.

But in society today, it is taught that there is no God, all families are dysfunctional, and our country, being an evil exploiter of minorities and the poor, is one that cannot be trusted. Thus, a mindset of altruism, of love, of higher purpose is replaced with a sense of fear and isolation; when there is nothing greater than the self, and no higher power or institution can be trusted, fear increases and each person becomes an island to themselves, frantically struggling to survive.

One can even see this rise of self-centeredness evidenced by the change in U.S. Army recruitment slogans over the past century. One hundred years ago, during World War I, the Army’s recruitment slogan was the picture of Uncle Sam pointing his finger and saying, “I want you for U.S. Army.” The nation wanted you, emphasizing the value of the country and how your service would benefit the nation.

From 1950 to 1971, the slogan “Modern Army Green” was used, emphasizing the value of the Army and how your service could benefit the military and, thus, the nation.

Then a very subtle elevation of the self and diminishment of the Army occurred from 1971 to 1980 with the slogan, “Today’s Army Wants to Join You.” Notice here that it isn’t about you joining the Army, an institution larger than you; rather, you are so important that the army wants to join you.

And from 1980 to 2001, it got even more narcissistic with the slogan, “Be all that you can be.” It’s really all about you advancing you, not sacrificing for the greater good. And this narcissistic corruption became pathologic with the 2001 to 2006 slogan, “An army of one.” Could any other slogan be so contrary to reality yet stand as clear evidence of the collapse of love?

The problem of violence in our society is a result of increased selfishness in the hearts of people, regardless of skin color or class. When selfishness reigns and love dies, people exploit those in their world. Thus, we readily abuse others for gain, even those closest to us (domestic violence and child abuse are also on the rise) — exactly what the Bible predicted would happen when love breaks down.

There are several other factors, in addition to the attack on the three big institutions (God, family, country), that are working together to destroy love, to increase fear and selfishness, and to cause more deadly violence.

The constant bombardment of society with fear-inducing messages: global warming, unsafe foods, terrorism, economic collapse, illegal immigrant invasion, drug crises, failing schools, increasing debt, healthcare crisis, economic warfare and tariffs, nuclear threats, war with North Korea or Iran, unstable political climate, destruction of the family — and on and on these fear-inducing messages go.

This fear leads to threat assessment, causing people to identify perceived enemies of the state that need to be removed. This leads to the next problem: trying to fix a heart problem (lack of love) with legislative solutions: gun control, border wall, free health care for all, protection of the sanctity of marriage, minimum wage increases, overturning Roe vs. Wade — and on and on the proposed legislative solutions go.

But these attempts at changing how we value each other with law will all fail!

Love only exists in an atmosphere of freedom. Love cannot be commanded, legislated, or coercively enforced; attempts to fix character problems with legislative or policy solutions always fail and, instead, contribute to further divisions in society with increased fear, selfishness, and protectionism.

Such legal solutions fail because the problem of violence in society is not due to having the wrong laws, but no longer having love in the hearts of people. We cannot increase love for each other by passing laws!

Fear leads to more fear as people seek to pass laws to fix the problem. Why? Because this process ends up only reinforcing the problem of ever-increasing selfishness as the other side responds with its own self-interested legislation.

What happens? A person or group experiences a real or imagined wrong perpetrated against them; being conditioned by society to be motived by fear — by survival, by threat assessment — and no longer having God, family, or a country we can trust, we don’t respond in love; instead, we proclaim how our rights have been violated and demand that the violators, or their proxies, be punished or be made to pay. This is the eye-for-an-eye mentality, one that leads only to ever-increasing cycles of hate and violence.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew such behavior would never work:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that (as quoted in Strength to Love, 1963).

Gandhi has been credited with the saying, “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.”

Jesus taught that love doesn’t seek to retaliate, doesn’t seek to get for self; rather, it seeks to save the abuser, to heal the oppressor, all to turn enemies into friends. Thus, Jesus taught that we should love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us. But this requires that we stop living in fear, stop living for self, and begin to live to love others!

This love is not natural to the human heart and can be experienced only in a trust relationship with our God of love. This means we must present the truth about God as Creator, the builder of reality, whose laws are the protocols upon which reality works, all based in His character of love — the principles of giving and beneficence. We must love others like Jesus loves us.

But when we present God as functioning no differently than a human dictator, passing laws that require Him to inflict punishment, then we become like that false god; we become fear-driven, lose love, and become ever more willing to try to use government to mandate that others live by our standards — and inflict punishment when they violate our morals.

I invite you to embrace the God of love and practice the methods of love in how you live. Don’t get caught up in the world’s system of fear and selfishness, but instead seek to reveal Jesus in all that you do.

[1] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rhovo1215_sum.pdf

[2] https://www.local10.com/news/florida/florida-mom-arrested-after-daughter-licks-tongue-depressor-puts-it-back-at-doctors-office

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/woman-seen-licking-ice-cream-viral-video-faces-20-years-n1026556

[4] Twenge, JM, et al, Egos inflating over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. J Pers. 2008 Jul;76(4):875-902; discussion 903-28. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00507.x. Epub 2008 May 23.