If the reports are true that are coming out of New Orleans we are getting a lesson on why Biblical Christianity is true and why it matters. The reports out of New Orleans may also indicate what happens when a people have surrendered the Christian faith.

The Anarchy that is developing in New Orleans is showing that Biblical Christianity is true when it teaches its unique doctrine of original sin and it is showing that Christianity matters because without its strong teaching in favor of governing authorities what would happen nationally is what is happening in New Orleans in microcosm if some similar disaster were to happen nationally.

The Biblical faith has always emphasized original sin. This is the doctrine that teaches that men are born sinners and by nature are corrupt to the bone. This doctrine teaches that unregenerate man lives with himself as the center of all reality. Further, this doctrine teaches that while all unregenerate men may not be as corrupt as they possibly could be they are still, one and all, curved in upon themselves. This doctrine flies in the face of much of modern theorizing about the nature of man, which commonly holds that man is basically good and if he has any lack it is just that he needs to be educated regarding his goodness. The looting, mayhem, and the descent of the human into animal like behavior as evidenced in the fighting for meals, and the pushing aside of women and children for the prospect of safety or food is proof positive that men are by nature sinners.

It is because men are born sinners that God instituted government in various jurisdictions for the establishment of Social order within the jurisdiction in question. New Orleans is living proof that a hyper-libertarian notion of government is just plain nonsense. Government is necessary and the fact that at times it seems like a necessary evil is only indicative of how long it has been since many of us have been exposed to good government. Both the doctrines of original sin and the doctrine of the need of governance are Biblical doctrines.

I wonder also if the behavior in New Orleans is evidence of what happens when a people move away from the Biblical faith. Now, I have no doubt that there will be heroic stories that eventually come out of this whole nightmare on Bourbon Street but what we are seeing and hearing now is really a story of the survival of the fittest. We are seeing nature, red in tooth and claw. What we are not seeing is the kind of behavior that we have heard of once upon a time, where among a Christian people, Christian men gave all the seats in lifeboats to women and children knowing that in doing so they would die. Instead what we read is of young men pushing aside the aged, young, and infirmed in order to secure advantage. Is it wrong to suggest that this is due to the fact that the West is now post-Christian?

Another indicator I see from New Orleans that we are post-Christian is the stories we are reading of families without men. For example the New York Daily News had a one article that reported about a Gloria Charles and a Claudia Sims.

Mrs. Charles was reported to have walked to the Superdome in waist-high water with her five daughters, six grandkids, six nieces and nephews, who took turns keeping her mother, a 72-year-old amputee, afloat on an air mattress.

Mrs. Claudia Sims, 54, in the same Daily News report was have said to have watched from the side with her six grandkids all around her, while young men descended upon food that was brought for relief. Mrs. Sims and her grandchildren hadn’t eaten in 24 hours. Mrs. Sims was quoted as saying, “I can’t compete with these people.”

Now, for at least two generations we have been crafting and pursuing an anti-Christ policy that makes Fathers and husbands irrelevant in the home. The policy, by design or by happenstance, resulted in the Federal Government taking care of the Claudia Sims and Gloria Charles’ of this country. The fact that the Federal Government should not be charged with the task of substitute husband and father is seen by their inability to protect and defend these women as a husband or father would were he on the scene.

Further, the reality that the expectation exists among the citizenry in general that the Federal Government is supposed to take care of the citizenry as a father or husband is seen in the reports of rage towards the government for not being effective enough in rescue efforts. Folks, the Federal Government is not your Daddy, its not your Brother, and its not your husband. A Christian people would never think of it in such a way.

A Christian America could not have prevented a hurricane in the gulf region. But if Christianity hadn’t been increasingly tossed aside over the years perhaps the response to this disaster wouldn’t find animal anarchy descending upon women and children without any men to defend them.