November 01, 1989 by Ralph D.Winter

Are We the Hypocrites?

It is all too easy for Evangelical believers to be caught up in the euphoria of other Americans gazing with uncritical eyes at what is happening in eastern Europe.But we need to ask some tough questions:

“When has the mere achievement of democracy produced nice people?” Isn’t it the other way around? What difference does it make whether Germans or Russians killed the 2,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest Massacre. One of the two did it. The fact that both were capable of doing it, that either can realistically be accused, ought to remind us that people, just plain people, are not going to “go right” automatically the instant they are free to do what they want, or the moment they can freely vote for what they want.

If Germany is reunited we will then suddenly have, again, two major, potentially tyranical powers loosed upon the world, Germany and Japan, both of whom have—let’s be honest—very ugly past records of behavior when free to do as they wished. Is there suddenly a “new Japanese” or a “new German” who will not try to dominate other nations? Peoplewho would not have been can been unkindly in a war relocation camp? Will a “new German” suddenly appear who will not just naturally want to turn plowshares into arms? When did that transformation take place?

Essentially, in WWII, two warlike countries were disarmed—at phenomenal cost to their mugged victims. Then, for 40 years they were “protected” by the armaments and hugely expensive defense industry of the “free world.” Is any reader of Mission Frontiers knowledgeable enough to inform me how much money England and America could have accumulated had they had the same privilege Germany and Japan had—not to have to spend any of their own money for 40 years on military arms and defense? What if Americans could have saved all that money over the years that went into the Pentagon, and put all that energy into the development of our educational industrial strength? And just how much of the “post-war miracle” in Japan and Germany would have occurred if they had not had that kind immense financial advantage?

Our household word, Sony, belongs to the author of a book, A Japan that Can Say ‘No’, whose company has just bought out one of the major Hollywood studios, along with the two hottest producers around (who produced “Batman”). Is this mounting power among us a new fun-loving, peace-seeking Japanese, that can be depended upon to clean up the sex-soaked, violence-ridden, TV perversity which we ourselves have coaxed into existence by our own increasingly perverse appetites?

Now, careful! Read on: lest anyone think I am being nationalistically condescending to these newly powerful barbarians, let me make very clear that we, too, are barbarians. I am not looking upon the U.S. as a very Christian nation. If I were, how could I as a Christian explain to our fellow believers, in Thailand, Taiwan, and South Korea the existence of our official, federal, brute-force politics which have forced those nations to open their customs barriers to our country’s (world’s largest) export drug trade—namely the nicotine industry? How can missionaries in Thailand, try to dissuade tribal Christians not to grow opium, and also to explain a reputable (but evil) industry which is not only subsidized by Congressional approval, but is now madly expanding its fiendish purposes throughout the world with cigarette packages not carrying warning labels of any kind.

What kind of hypocrisy is this—to talk self-righteously about Colombian government inaction in curbing their comparatively minor outflow of cocaine, while our own homegrown drugs (alcohol and nicotine) kill between 15 and 20 times as many of our own people? And, through our exports and our alcohol-drenched movie and video industries press this vicious stuff on the whole world? Who are we kidding?

What I am really saying is “What is Eastern Europe getting, in reaching for freedom?” What we have? The world’s highest divorce rate? The most outragious hand-gun murder rate? Our freedom for unlimited pornography (which we export if we cannot consume it all ourselves)?