Jeremiah and American Culture

I have been reading through Jeremiah for my quiet time, and I am struck by how much of what he says really does fit where our country is today.  For instance, in Jeremiah chapter 9 Jeremiah’s oracle discusses the increasing evil of the land.  The people of the land are treacherous slanderers, full of deceit, progressing from evil to evil.  They are full of falsehood (3) and weary themselves in committing iniquity (5).

Consider how often you catch your neighbors in what we call “tall tales.”  It seems like our culture has become full of the notion that “it ain’t wrong unless your caught,” and people take such a maxim into all that they say for and about themselves.  It seems that almost weekly we hear about some government official or major business executive that inflated their resume with false claims of degrees and training that never really happened.  

And slander!  Its the stock and trade of coffee clubs and the media.  From high to low in our culture, any unverified report is fair ground for discussion.  We are more than willing to buy the lies that the people around us tell.  And we always assume its the truth and the full story.

Look at our culture of entertainment.  Jeremiah’s oracle points to how people “weary themselves in committing iniquity,” and “progress from evil to evil.”  Think about it.  The people our culture chooses to entertain us seem to progress further and further into smut.  Carol Alt, a super model of the past, called out Sports Illustrated recently for how far they have descended into pornography.  Major entertainment figures now are permitted, and publicly broadcast TV to engage in behaviors that were once only tolerated in strip clubs!  Looking at you, Miley Cyrus.  Entertainers with little talent have to push deeper and deeper into evil if they are going to make money from a public that is only too fascinated with their antics.

Our culture gets bored with depravity, and moves on the to the next, deeper level.  We are a lot more like the culture of Ancient Judah than we want to admit.  And bear in mind, the next thing that happened for them was judgment.  Not any ordinary judgment either.  It was destruction.  

Read through Jeremiah, and note the similarities to our culture.  Can judgment be too far away for us?