Has America Lost its Roots?

Our apple trees are not doing well so I called a “tree doctor” to attend to our problem. He came to the front door wearing a white lab coat—medical doctors don’t even wear lab coats anymore, do they? Each of our trees only produced about a dozen apples this year, when in years past, we would harvest 60-70 apples. He looked at the leaves and the bark, took a small core sample, and then he said—”It’s all about the roots. You start at the bottom and work up. If they aren’t getting enough water and nutrition to the roots. Anything else you do won’t help.”

Today we have forgotten about our roots. Each generation seems to get further away from remembering what nourished us as a people to create the liberty and wealth—the two are inseparable, that we enjoy today. Over the past 40 years, there has been a silent movement of “Daniels” in the basic science communities that are reconciling historic Biblical teachings, with basic science ideas about creation and Christianity. People are not being taught these things in churches, schools, or colleges. Theologians and scientists are afraid of being outed because of their faith not only in “the words”, but also in the “math”. In the end they tell the same story. If they do come out, they could be thrown to the academic political lions. And here is the connection: In Genesis, the material –dust and the transcendental-spirit, were joined together. With the Incarnation “the word became flesh” and dwelt amongst us.” That idea has been the basis of Western Civilization for over 8000 years. Cosmology—anthropology—Christology all connected. The physical and the spiritual. No other religion and no other political models including the “isms” make this connection. Only in the Christian-Judeo tradition is the importance of the individual person so important. That is because we were made by God and for God.

Today we are haphazardly picking the fruits of our father’s labor without nourishing the roots that brought forth the harvest. It is easy to see in business and sometimes unfortunately on family farms where legacies of work and entrepreneurship that first planted the roots of a business or a farm, are being forgotten. A lot must happen before a tree bares fruit and most of it is underground. Without a moral predicate, without hard work, without appreciating our roots, there will soon be little fruit to harvest.

Progressive socialism is nothing more than a political and economic theory that marginalizes the individual and maximizes the importance of “things”—materialism. There is no room for the covalent bonding of body and soul. As I look at what has happened to our country in just the last 40 years, I have seen this march toward materialism and progressive socialism accelerating until people are accepting the idea that liberty and free will are given to us as a license from government and not by virtue of our unique nature and coming from God. This culture of materialism is destroying our basic institutions in front of our eyes. You can’t have the university or the hospital, or the guild or corporation without tending to the roots of the tree. We saw this during the political pandemic when large numbers of providers—doctors, nurses, and institutions, lost their humanity and fell for the progressive idea that the “common good” was more important than the sanctity of life and the rights of the individual. Coercion replaced “free will” The main reason so many health care workers are leaving their professions today is because the culture of materialism and corporate policy that gamed the system for profit, replacing moral and ethical professional codes of conduct.

And let me be specific about the system of medical care in our country. It is not a free market, and it is not an example of capitalism. “Command and control” have almost completely replaced a free market. Mercantilism and cronyism have had a revival. Markets establish prices that give information and communicate signals that inform buyers and sellers regarding issues of scarcity and value. Very little of that process is happening in the medical marketplace today.

Organizations representing large corporations, the medical and educational establishments, government unions, and many lobbyists representing social causes like Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, and many feminist organizations, see people as things. They see us as mouths to feed and bodies to be sorted categorized by sex, time in the womb, ethnicity, and race. Our Founding fathers in the Christian and Natural Law tradition visualized us as body and soul. Mouths to feed, but hands to work and minds to create, but most importantly—souls to pray. Political and economic systems that don’t understand that fact as an underlying principle have no choice but to try to destroy organizations (the church), people of faith, and systems—economic and political that put God at their centers and not government or things.

One of my biggest disappointments since retiring from the practice of medicine and surgery is to realize that so many people don’t even think about these issues. Especially professional people like doctors and lawyers who have had very little exposure to Western Civilization studies, Ancient History, or Civics. I had a young surgeon from Salt Lake tell me several years ago that the last time he had taken any history courses was in the tenth grade. He was so busy taking advanced placement courses to get into medical school, that he didn’t have time to pursue other disciplines of thought. Furthermore, the last time he had attended a church service was Christmas when he was in the third grade. Fruit to be harvested yes—I’m sure he will make lots of money. Roots being tended too.

If there were any group of people who I believe should be “tending to their roots” it would be politicians. Here is the rub and it is not pretty. Many of them are more like carnival hucksters. They are really “nice and they will sell you anything” I had a family member tell me that they were going to vote for one of the most liberal politicians in our State because he was a “really great guy—I know him”. I asked if there was even one issue that he stood for that he supported? —Property or grocery tax reform, 1^st and 2^nd Amendments issues, size of government, Pro-Life, LGBTQ indoctrination in our schools—BLM? All that mattered was that the politician was “nice”. Compared to Donald Trump who they aligned themselves with on many issues and who they didn’t think was a “nice guy” they preferred “Nice” over substance.

I never asked but I said to myself—what moral predicate—for me that would be what is your Biblical bases for casting a vote for “nice” over substance. Seems to me that we are harvesting the fruit without tending to our roots.