Since the cultural shift of the 1960s, the driving ideology for cultural change has been to do away with any and all objective moral standards. This has included even cultural mores based upon those objective standards.
For anyone who knows anything about the way things were, these standards were basically drawn from either the implicit or explicit teachings of Christianity. However, the morals du jour have become “everything is an experiment” and standards of right and wrong drawn from the Christian faith are not needed.
So, we lower standards in personal morals, academics, maintaining a common language, requirements for being in the military, fire department, teaching, school and work dress codes, social decorum, distinguishing between adults and children by the use of “sir” or “ma’am”, personal life being considered in job applications, marriage and divorce, etc.
So what caused the banking debacle? First, greed and immorality of those in positions of power, be they the private sector or political. Second, the lowering of standards that have to be met in order to get a home loan.
The devaluing of Christian morals in our society has had and will continue to have an extraordinarily deleterious impact upon all of us. The reason is simple. Our form of government and capitalism both are built upon the Judeo/Christian ethic, without which, government will become more intrusive, gargantuan, and controlling.
By the way, lest you think I am the first to say this, read the following excerpts.
James Madison said, “I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way.” ((73. James Madison, The Papers of James Madison, William T. Hutchinson, editor (Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1962), Vol. I, p. 96, to William Bradford on September 25, 1773))
Thomas Jefferson said, “The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral principles of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses.” ((Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Alberty Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XII, p. 315, to James Fishback, September 27, 1809))
John Quincy Adams said, “In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.” ((John Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1837 (Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), pp. 5-6))
Congress, U.S. House Judiciary Committee, 1854 declared, “Had the people, during the Revolution, had a suspicion of any attempt to war against Christianity, that Revolution would have been strangled in its cradle… In this age, there can be no substitute for Christianity… That was the religion of the founders of the republic and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.” ((Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress (Washington: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1854), pp. 6-9))
