Some Republican leaders are counseling the party to keep quiet the “cultural agenda”: protection of marriage, right to life, and moral issues. They counsel, money trumps morality: the economy is the issue to win with.
This shallow analysis got us into this dangerous mess! A strong, vital culture is not one based merely on immediate self-gratification, self-preservation and self-indulgence. There’s not enough money in the world to borrow, to fill the true need in the human heart with “things”. We are bigger, made for greater purposes, requiring of us deeper lives than that.
Human nature requires a magnanimity – a great-soulness – of us. Without the freedom and call to find true greatness, we will die as persons and as a culture. Confined in a box of escapist entertainment, mind-numbing drugs and adolescent toys we will suffocate. An economy of shallow consumerism and a government of paternalism betrays the human soul! We can borrow and spend, spend and borrow until the Chinese own us: we will remain empty, hungry, unhappy and unfulfilled until we solve the real issues that human nature demands of us.
A society that denies life to the preborn child denies its own right to survive; a society that redefines man, woman and marriage discards the foundation of society for a fabrication, a fiction. A society that rewrites the Ten Commandments destroys its own moral compass, and is guided by fools. The “cultural agenda” is no “extra” – it is essential, discarded at our peril.
Thomas
Renew The Church! - website and Blog 
Dear Thomas,
Yes, I was grieved that Haley Barbour was the latest potential Republican presidential candidate to suggest social issues like abortion should be taken off the table, making the economy the main focus … the Mississippi governor said those who focus on social issues like abortion are taking the GOP off message this election cycle.
“Any issue that takes people’s eye off of unemployment, job creation, economic growth, taxes, spending, deficits, debts is taking your eye off the ball,” Barbour said…
… Barbour continued. “You run down rabbit trails, you’re wasting— you’re using up valuable resources that could be used to talk to people about what they care about.”
…Barbour was asked about the “truce” potential presidential candidate Mitch Daniels, the Indiana governor, called for on social issues that quickly got him in trouble with pro-life advocates… he said he agreed with Daniels’ sentiment, which Daniels partly walked back in a subsequent interview.
Barbour said a candidate’s stance on abortion “ain’t going to change anybody’s vote this year.” (Full story at LifeNews.com)
Well, Mr. Barbour, it will change mine! I’m grateful for your words, Thomas, which reveal the heart of the matter: “The “cultural agenda” is no ‘extra’ – it is essential, discarded at our peril. “
By: Deborah on September 11, 2010
at 3:46 pm
Dear Thomas,
Amen,Brother! From your description, and from the one posted by another respondent, Deborah, it’s clear Satan is doing his all to use the world’s economic failures and political hopefuls to sabotage and take our eyes off the real issues that will remove us from God’s grace and into eternal damnation: abortion, gay marriage, greed and all material items associated with satisfying immediate wants and desires.
I must admit, I don’t keep up with the news as I should. However, I am thankful for your insight and honesty. Your blog keeps me correctly informed, and I trust it is guided by the Holy Spirit. As stated in John chapter 14:17,”Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.”
Lesley
By: Lesley on September 11, 2010
at 5:04 pm