America: Drowning in Debt

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The national debt of the United States government is rapidly closing in on $37 trillion. Given that the nominal U.S. GDP is only $29.35 trillion, we owe significantly more than our economy produces. The interest payment alone on the debt is now the third-highest line-item expense, just after Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security and just ahead of Defense. It even surpasses our total federal tax revenue. 

In addition to the federal government, state and local debt is another $3.2 trillion, and total credit card debt is currently over $1.28 trillion. In all, total indebtedness of the United States, public and private, sits at nearly $105 trillion. Though it is increasingly obvious our national debt will never be repaid, the deficit continues to grow at an alarming rate. 

These numbers are simply too big to understand. To help put them in perspective, one trillion seconds is over 31,688 years. Our debt is now 100 times that number. 

To put it mildly, this bodes ill for our future. Out-of-control debt has been a significant factor in the collapse of every major world power in history. For example, the French Revolution was triggered by a fiscal crisis, which sparked civil war and left between 300,000 and 500,000 dead, not including those killed abroad in foreign wars. 

With apologies to Dave Ramsey, there are times when a certain amount of debt makes sense. Businesses use it to launch and expand. People take on debt to buy a home or in emergencies. Governments take on debt in times of emergency. Overall, Scripture clearly warns against debt. According to Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.” Paul commands in Romans 13:8, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other.” God’s assessment of the approach our government is taking is just as clear: “The wicked borrows but does not pay back” (Psalm 37:21). 

In the late 1930s, sociologist Pitirim Sorokin distinguished between cultures that were “sensate” and those that were “ideational.” Sensate cultures filter that reality is primarily sensory, and that truth is found through empirical observation. These cultures pursued sensory pleasure, material comfort, and immediate gratification. 

Ideational cultures are oriented beyond the material world to ideals, or truths found in philosophy or divine revelation. Ideational societies aim at the future, with a focus on self-discipline and aligning life and culture with eternal truths. While ideational cultures can focus so much on the spiritual that they neglect the material, they also tend to encourage delayed gratification and building for the future. 

Originally built on ideals and aimed at the future, America is now sensate and oriented around the demand for immediate gratification. This explains not only the incredible levels of personal and federal debt, but also the decline of marriage, widespread addictions to pornography and gambling, and the serious drop-off in the birth rate. 

A nation captive to short-term sensate thinking looks primarily to the government for all that it needs and desires. We want things, and we look to the government to give them. Politicians want things and fund them without counting the cost. As the government, it can spend and spend without considering the burden placed on future generations. 

A society with little vision for the future inevitably becomes sensate. As the British anthropologist Joseph Unwin put it, “In these cultures, life is for now.” There is no long-term solution for the national debt crisis without first dealing with the worldview at the root of the problem. The shift toward an ideational culture involves the willingness to delay gratification. That only results from reattaching to eternal truths that point us beyond the here and now.  

A robust vision of the Gospel of the Kingdom, lived out through families and local communities, will rejuvenate the intermediate institutions of society. Government overreach can be mitigated when people who rely on the government can look elsewhere, especially the church and other intermediate institutions of civil society. This begins with Christians who are content to be “weird,” whose affections and loyalties are ordered by Kingdom priorities rather than the sensate priorities of a culture enslaved by debt.

RELATED: More Isn't Always Better: 6 Ways Debt Holds You Back

Image credit: ©Getty Images/David Sacks

John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.