Folks in my income bracket can apply for free heating assistance (LIHEAP), help with water bills (UESF), and electric bills (CAP, MEAF, LIURP).

If I was old enough, I could use public transit for free (and get Medicare coverage).

Many of my fellow employees at the bank are single mothers. Anecdotally, President Clinton’s “workfare” reform has worked, though every program has its loopholes. Some of my coworkers work part time in order to avoid making too much money and risk losing their government-provided benefits. Many of them consider themselves married even though they have never registered their marriage with the state (another common dodge is to be permanently engaged). If they had a civil marriage they would lose some choice benefits. For example, low-income single mothers can easily qualify to have the government pay for their contribution to employer provided healthcare.

But our welfare society is not just limited to single mothers. Many of the married mothers in my church enjoy WIC benefits, government subsidized groceries targeted as nutrition for pregnant women and young children. (Aside: I wonder if theologically conservative churches, controlled for other variables, are disproportionately represented on WIC rolls because of the number of families reliant on single parent incomes.)

And our welfare society is equal opportunity. An unfortunate number of men and women  in our church have been laid off. All of them have taken advantage of unemployment benefits while looking for work.

Despite my libertarian sentiments, I am no exception. Without government-subsidized Stafford loans I would have a hard time paying for graduate school. When I begin repaying those loans, I may claim them as a tax writeoff. And when the day comes that I purchase my first home, I will probably take advantage of the first time homebuyer tax credit.

But our welfare society has even broader implications for the church. I recently read a New York Times article which argued that the public stigma once associated with receiving food stamps is fading. Americans are increasingly less likely to feel shame about accepting government food aid.

I have a hard time feeling the sense of outrage demanded by my libertarian tendencies. After all, every government assistance program once faced a similar transition from public opprobrium to cultural acceptance. Sure, I believe that our embrace of “bread and circuses” will sap economic growth and vitiate American society, but I guess I’ve become numbed to its significance as I’m smothered by its all encompassing embrace.

But whatever your personal feelings on the matter, we should expect to see this cultural shift reflected in the Church. As our cultural assumptions about the role of government in society mutate, it is likely that we will see a change of emphasis among church leaders and laity. Perhaps this change has already begun.

Loaded terms and phrases like “social justice” and “fighting poverty” have become buzzwords among evangelicals. Evangelical celebrity Rick Warren has joined with Bono in supporting the ONE campaign, an attempt to end poverty in Africa through international welfare assistance. It even seems to have become requisite in neo-Reformed circles to prove your bona fides by acknowledging the importance of fighting poverty and promoting human rights.

I would expect this changed attitude towards the welfare society to soften traditional opposition to big government from theological conservatives. It would be logical for the socially conservative Religious Right, which has long supported an interventionist State in moral matters, to become less opposed to government intervention in other arenas.

If my prediction bears out and we are able to look back and point to a moment of transition, perhaps it would be George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” and government aid for faith-based charities. I suspect that a President Huckabee, the overwhelming choice of the evangelical right in 2008, would have pushed for an even closer alliance between Church and State.

What’s next!? A news story critical of Obama?

But Madoff’s sentencing took on a special significance. As the judge “read his sentence, the courtroom, filled with many of Madoff’s devastated victims, broke into applause.” NPR interviewed a number of Madoff’s victims who took turns alternately decrying how horrible Madoff’s actions were and wishing that he could be punished above what the federal sentencing guidelines allow. 

America united to condemn the many sins of Bernie Madoff. He became a larger-than-life figure in the process. Not only was what he did wrong or criminal but his crimes revealed his ‘extraordinary evil.’ This theme repeated itself on blog posts and online forums. Madoff’s trial and sentencing were opportunities for ritualistic, communal condemnation.

One of the oddities of our current economic recession is that most people don’t know who to blame. Was it corrupt bank CEOS? Greedy lenders? Average people borrowing beyond their means? Government interference in the market? Too little government interference in the market? There is no widespread consensus. Bernie Madoff gives us an opportunity to point our collective finger. I suspect that much of the emotion surrounding the case had less to do with Madoff’s crimes per se and more to do with our delight at finally finding a solid target.

We are using Bernie Madoff to expiate a lingering sense of communal guilt. I wonder if many Americans feel a vague, subconscious sense of guilt over what has happened; even if it isn’t guilt, we do fear that others will misinterpret our actions. So the family that just bought a new house with an adjustable rate mortgage for which they can no longer afford the monthly payments, the newlyweds up to their ears in credit card debt, or the bank CEO who accepted a large bonus can each justify (or at least distract from) their own actions by decrying Bernie Madoff’s.

This compulsion is typical of human behavior. By condemning other people who engage in less communally acceptable forms of behavior we look all the better by comparison. “I may have told a little white lie to my spouse, yelled at my kids, or lusted after a co-worker, but at least I didn’t cheat on my spouse, beat my kids, or sleep around.”

The case of Bernie Madoff shows how fundamentally lacking our understanding of human nature is. We are depraved, sinful creatures with fallen natures. In our hearts we are no different from Bernie Madoff. His extravagant sins are no worse than our own. It is only by the grace of God that we can ever do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. We need God’s freely offered mercy in order to have any hope of living lives that conform to the image of Christ.

What would a Christ-like response to Bernie Madoff’s sins look like? I believe that the Amish reaction to the shooting deaths of five of their little girls in 2006 should be a real rebuke to us who are so quick to condemn Mr. Madoff. They grieved, certainly, but they also forgave the man who killed their daughters. They provided for the shooter’s family, paying for the future education of his children. They lived out the gospel.

Contrast the Amish response to tragedy with the response of Madoff’s victims (and the watching public as a whole). Where the Amish forgave, we have condemned. Madoff’s sentencing reminded me not a little of a passion play. I almost expected a “crucify him!” to punctuate the judge’s statement. The same investors who crowned Bernie Madoff as the king of investment gurus were crowing for his blood just a few months later.

Of course the analogy breaks down very quickly. Christ was without sin while Madoff was anything but! Yet I believe that the curious case of Bernie Madoff ought to encourage us to think hard about expiation, human depravity, and our desperate need for grace.

The rockstar treatment for Ajay Bhatt, the co-inventor of the USB, is humorous because the object of worship is so incongruous. Instead of the doors opening for the 6′ 8″, 250 pound LeBron or American Idol winner Kris Allen, a short, dowdy, overweight computer tech strides into the break room and is immediately mobbed by devoted fans.

Annual lists of the hottest celebrities, the top selling artists, and biggest grossing movie stars show us what we value as Americans. Athletic ability, acting or singing talent, good looks, and hipness is what we idolize and thus what we teach our children to emulate. We perpetuate these values by consuming media about the people who personify what we desire for ourselves. This mechanism is actually quantifiable; compare the Nielsen ratings for American Idol (FOX) and Nova (PBS).

The celebrities we choose tell us much about what we value as a culture. In South Korea, when asked who they want to be when they grow up, kids are more likely to mention a Nobel Prize-winning scientist than a sports star. In America kids spend science class fantasizing about living a secret double life as a pop-star/actress.

Debates over the decline in the quality of American primary and secondary education tend to focus on the hardware of education: tax dollars, infrastructure, school vouchers, teachers’ unions. The closest thing to cultural values that you typically get in the discussion are laments about uninvolved parents. Rarely do we focus on the software of education, the system of cultural values that can either stimulate or hinder a child’s educational achievement.

Let’s be frank. In your stereotypical American high school who is cool? The jocks, preps, cheerleaders, musicians, or dancers, perhaps…but never the nerds, the debaters, the math club, or the chess team. This caste system in our high schools has become a trope in entertainment (ie “Saved by the Bell”). All too often, being smart = being uncool.

A co-worker of mine at the bank is actually quite intelligent, but she has no desire to do anything but be a part-time bank teller so she can afford to get drunk on the weekends with her friends. She told me that when she was in high school she purposefully failed tests and stopped studying because the smart kids were looked down on and she wanted to be cool. Book smarts are uncool, but street smarts are all the rage.

Among the reasons why, in comparison to the United States, countries like Japan and South Korea have superior pre-college educational systems (check out this OECD survey) is their culture of learning. They are told to emulate businessmen and scientists rather than entertainers. Now, I’ve enjoyed watching LeBron James hoop it up during the Finals as much as the next guy, but do we really want our kids to emulate a man who skipped classes to play ball, choose sport over college, and who makes millions but is barely literate?

Don’t get me wrong; I would love to be the best player on the court, a great singer or actor, or stunningly handsome. These abilities are gifts like any other. Indeed, even the mechanism for perpetuating our values is perfectly legitimate. After all, Hebrews 12 encourages Christians to run the race of a Christlike life by reminding them of a “great cloud of witnesses” watching them run. The Christian runner is encouraged to emulate these spectators who have finished the race before.

What we lack in American culture is a balanced appreciation of the gifts we have been granted. Intellectual ability should be valued as much as athletic skill or musical talent. If we do not change our culture than our educational system will continue to stagnate while other cultures pass us by. Of course, rather than change, we could always just export our value system to other countries and make them like us. Nike and Adidas are certainly trying their best to do so in China. If you can’t beat ‘em, make them join you!

Visualize a eighty year old, little nun in full habit walking in to the ode “Dont Cha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?”

I’ve been so subsumed by popular culture in Philly that it takes the most incongruous combinations to make me self-conscious anymore. We sure ain’t in Greenville anymore, Toto!

You see, tenure track professors head the history departments, hand out teaching assignments, and ladle the gravy. Unsurprisingly, tenure track professors ensure their own fiscal well-being. By hiring adjunct, part-time faculty to work for barely more than minimum wage, tenure track faculty can maximize their own earnings. Welcome to the modern day guild system!

Labor unions, which are endowed with even more legal rights than informal, academic guilds, also maximize union-members pay at the expense of non-unionized workers. Sure, in some cases labor unions corner the market and control a labor monopoly, in which case the increased labor costs are born by consumers. But even there the market flows downhill. Consumers and companies move as the cost of living and producing increases, one signficant cause for the defection of industry from the Rustbelt to the Sunbelt and the population shift from the North to the South and Southwest. Visit inner-city Detroit or Philadelphia for a visual primer into the ultimate consequences of unionization.

When restrictions are placed on the labor market, the market responds in predictable fashion. Government stipulates that full-time workers be given benefits, then the market encourages employers to hire more part-time workers to whom those regulations do not apply. If you’ve ever worked as a part-time employee you probably remember getting in trouble when you tried to work too many hours…doing so would bump you into the full-time category and require the company to give you additional benefits.

This two-tiered system is inefficient. All things considered, one person working 40 hours is significantly more productive than two persons working 20 hours each. Yet our system encourages companies to take the less efficient route instead of maximizing efficiency and productivity.

After watching the clip I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I feel like applauding Starbucks for cleverly branding itself. The fact that Starbucks has found a way to insinuite itself into so many peoples’ lives speaks highly of the company’s ability to fill a demand (and even create a demand when none existed prior). I’m a confirmed capitalist and am loathe to condemn a company that has been so creative in developing a market. Indeed, I rather wish that all companies had the ability to predict what I want when even I don’t know what I want…it would certainly making shopping less of a chore!

On the other hand, I feel slightly embarrassed at how easily we consumers have been played. The idea that we unconciously bow to corporate propaganda is somehow distasteful. Indeed, none of the reasons for buying expensive Starbucks coffee listed by Simon are motives that I would be proud to embrace: 1) nicotine addiction, 2) discovering a communal identity or sense of belonging, and 3) expressing trendiness. Aren’t we then unthinking fools who mindlessly do what we are manipulated to do?

I doubt there is a facile answer.

On another note for all you fellow BJU-ans, about 12 minutes into the clip when Simon shows the image of quote #43 on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup dig around in the recesses of your memory and recall a 2006 chapel statement from the newly annointed President Stephen Jones. (For those of you unfamiliar with the incident Stephen Jones announced that Bob Jones would no longer serve Starbucks coffee because of the same offending quotation.) Simon mentions Baylor University’s protest over the pro-homosexual sentiment in the quotation. He used Starbucks acquiescence to Baylor on the matter as proof that Baylor wants to portray a edgy intellectual image without actually alienating consumers by being overly controversial (Starbucks is a for profit company, not an advocacy group). I wonder why Starbucks then reacted in the opposite manner when Bob Jones asked for the same consideration the following year.

I suspect that there may be a significant difference between what Baylor and Bob Jones demanded. Baylor simply wanted Starbucks to pull the offending corrugated cup from the Baylor Starbucks. It appears that Bob Jones University wanted Starbucks to pull the cup entirely. Starbucks may have attempted to appease evangelicals (they certainly don’t want to anger a third of the potential coffee drinkers in the country!) by putting a quotation by Rick Warren on their cups in 2006 (quote #43 came out in 2005). Apparently the company felt that the counter-balance should off-set evangelical concerns. I hypothesize that Starbucks was willing to assuage Baylor’s limited concerns, but was willing to cut its losses when it came to Bob Jones’ broader demand; this proves a logical decision when considered in light of the philosophy outlined by Bryant Simon.