Television reflects those who create it and transforms everybody else." That's a very frightening 10 words about the future of our culture.
via patriotpost.us
Please click above and read the whole article. Must-read.
Those countries with greater economic liberty and private property rights tend also to have stronger protections of human rights. And as an important side benefit of that greater economic liberty and human rights protections, their people are wealthier. We need to persuade our fellow man around the globe that liberty is a necessary ingredient for prosperity.
via patriotpost.us
Add to that the cultural principles on which a country is based, and you have the recipe.
The author of the Book of Wisdom, faced with a paganism in which God envied or despised humans, puts it clearly: how could God have created all things if he did not love them, he who in his infinite fullness, has need of nothing (cf. Wis 11:24-26)? Why would he have revealed himself to human beings if he did not wish to take care of them? God is the origin of our being and the foundation and apex of our freedom, not its opponent. How can mortal man build a firm foundation and how can the sinner be reconciled with himself? How can it be that there is public silence with regard to the first and essential reality of human life? How can what is most decisive in life be confined to the purely private sphere or banished to the shadows? We cannot live in darkness, without seeing the light of the sun. How is it then that God, who is the light of every mind, the power of every will and the magnet of every heart, be denied the right to propose the light that dissipates all darkness? This is why we need to hear God once again under the skies of Europe; may this holy word not be spoken in vain, and may it not be put at the service of purposes other than its own. It needs to be spoken in a holy way. And we must hear it in this way in ordinary life, in the silence of work, in brotherly love and in the difficulties that years bring on.
OK, so he quotes the Apocrypha and his phrasing a bit differently, but his point is much the same, that God has been crowded out of culture, and needs to be reinserted, not only as a part of the conversation, but as the basis for civilization.
12 Panama Americas • 12 Brazil Americas • 14 United States Americas
via forbes.com
Check out this list of the world's happiest countries. Brazil and U.S. right together, interestingly enough.
How might this chart affect the way the gospel should be presented to each country's citizens?