Tired

Several years ago, my best friend asked me to read Atlas Shrugged. I did - and my disagreement with him over the book is what ultimately seemed to end our friendship. (I don't know for certain, but the two are closely linked in time and he is very much in love with the philosophy of the book.) Because while I agree to some extent with the ideas of the book - certainly that capitalism is necessary and that you should be rewarded in accordance with your willingness to work - I also believe that there needs to be some room for caring for those who can't care for themselves. Christ calls us to care for the widows and orphans, and that is not something we should turn away from. We just need to balance it against feeling that we should care for those who are perfectly able to care for themselves but choose not to. I suppose you could say our disagreement stemmed from the fact that Rand sees no place for God in rational society and I see no way for rational society to exist without God. To put it a different way, Rand says that the chief end of man is to bring about his own happiness. I believe the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I consider the upcoming election - because there is temptation within the pages of Atlas Shrugged. The idea of pulling up stakes and refusing to support those who will not support themselves - especially in light of the socialist policy that is sure to come if Obama should win - is incredibly tempting. (As an aside, I had to laugh at one very liberal commenter on another blog I read who said something about how Republicans should get ready to move to Canada in December. I thought to reply, but didn't, that we wouldn't need to move to Canada, as the whole point of Obama's policy is to make the US as socialist as they are. It amuses - at the same time as it frightens - me that we as a country are so incredibly uninformed.) Paul tells us that whatever we do should be done for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31) - this means our very work is an act of glorifying God. So if our work is one of the ways which we fulfill our chief end...we can't very well stop doing it, even to prove a point that very much needs proving (after all, we do also have 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10).

At the end of the day, it just leaves me tired. Because I don't see much hope for any kind of change that matters.