By Charley Reese, The Orlando Sentinel
March 1998 – The sterility of today’s depraved culture has a religious basis. As much as agnostics and atheists would like to deny it, all cultures, good or evil, are derived from religion.
That’s because religious beliefs produce political and social consequences. America’s culture has always been based on Christianity. Europe, from which we came, was known as Christendom. But early in the 19th century, American Christianity developed a split. This split caused, and still causes, political conflicts.
Two of the basic premises of orthodox Christianity are that God is sovereign and cannot be manipulated and that humans are innately depraved. That was the prevailing view at the time of the American Revolution. Because humans are depraved, they cannot be trusted with power – hence, limited government and constitutional restraints on power.
Because man’s evil is inside him changing his physical or social circumstances will not make him good. Only God’s grace and obedience to God can do that. Hence, little or no concern is shown for social reform, either in the American Revolution or in the Bible. You may, if you like, describe this as the conservative position.
This view remained dominant in the South, but in the North a new view took root. Its basic premises were that man was inherently good and that God could be manipulated. The modern version is, if you need a new car, pray for it.
The political consequences were that if man is inherently good, and he acts badly, it must be because of outside circumstances – lack of income, bad neighborhood, poor education, racism, economic system, etc. Hence, to make men better, change their circumstances. This, as you will see, is an accurate description of modern liberalism.
This belief is clearly evident in practically every news story, editorial, and political speech in America. Whatever is wrong, it is not the fault of the individual. If a kid drops out of school, or graduates but is essentially ignorant, it’s the fault of the education system. If someone is a criminal, it is the fault of society. If people are poor, it is the fault of the economic system. If someone smokes, it is the fault of the tobacco industry.
The liberal has an unshakeable religious faith that given sufficient money, the right program, the right education system, and sufficient power to coerce, then human ills can be eliminated and a paradise on earth can be created. By placing man first and God second, the liberal view inevitably evolved into eliminating God altogether – hence, a secular and egalitarian culture developed.
Liberalism – in all its forms, such as socialism, communism, and liberal democracy – failed because its basic premise is wrong. Man isn’t inherently good; he’s inherently evil, and he really cannot be trusted with power. If there is anyone who cannot draw that conclusion from the nightmarish and bloody 20th century, then he is inherently uneducable.
Despite trillions of dollars, astounding technological advances and oceans of spilled blood, not one human problem has been solved. Man has not been made good. Heaven on earth has not been created. All that has been accomplished is to give man increased capacity to do evil. The ability to manipulate, control, and kill has been greatly advanced. That’s the progress liberalism has produced.
The conservative and liberal views, as I have defined them, are irreconcilable. Separation is the only way to avoid conflict. I personally am bored to gagging with hearing liberals make excuses for people and propose one failed social scheme after another. And people who call themselves conservatives but who just offer a different set of excuses and propose a different set of failed schemes are, in fact, liberals wearing a false face.
A wise man once observed: “If you understand, the world is as it is; if you do not understand, the world is as it is.” If you’re looking to politics for solutions, you’re looking in the wrong place. 
Write Charley Reese at The Orlando Sentinel, 633 N. Orange Ave., Orlando FL 32801.
