This morning, former Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. In the interview, he was asked if he thought America was in the midst of a “spiritual crisis.” As we all know, politicians are trained to present themselves as the solution to every problem. Perry could’ve easily taken the opportunity to say, “Yes, we have a spiritual crisis. Elect me and I’ll fix it by banning X or implementing Y.” Instead, he responded with the following:
“You know, I can only speak for myself, and I know where my hope for the future is in my Lord and Savior… If people are looking for government to be their savior, they’re looking at the wrong place. The things we have in this country were given to us by God, not by government. Now if you call a spiritual crisis relying on government as a crisis, I would suggest to you we’ve got a spiritual crisis if you’re looking to government to be your savior.”
Perry’s answer was built on three very astute observations. First, one’s hope can only be rightly placed in whoever created the institutions, people, and matter which make up reality. Second, a spiritual crisis occurs when one stops putting their hope in the Creator, but in something within the created order—say, an institution, person, or piece of matter (this phenomena also goes by the name “idolatry”). Third, “government” is in the created order, thus can’t be a person’s ultimate hope, or the solution to a “spiritual crisis.” On these three premises, Perry asserts that government is not only impotent to provide the solution to our spiritual crisis, but the very impulse to look to government for an answer to the crisis is itself the crisis!
Who knows what would possess a politician to answer a question with such humility and theological acuity? Perhaps he recently read Acts 12. There, the prototypical politician, Herod, accepts the praise of man and does not give glory where it is due. Rather than telling the people where true hope is to be found, he gladly accepted the messianic role. As you may recall, he’s promptly eaten by worms—for real.
This may seem like an odd punishment; a grotesque thing to witness, no doubt. However, it’s not that unusual or odd at all. Actually, this is the hard reality with which every created thing will one day have to reckon. We have a beginning, we have an end. We go into the ground, and we’re eaten by worms. In the case of Herod, the process was just expedited a bit. As a created thing, your hope has to be found in a non-created being. More to the point, your hope has to be placed in the one who met the grave, yet escaped the worms. Herod was a created thing. Rick Perry is a created thing. America is a created thing. You and I are created things. Thus, our “spiritual crisis” can only be solved by placing our hope in the Creator as He’s revealed Himself in the resurrected Messiah, the giver of eternal life, Jesus of Nazareth.
Whatever Perry’s motivation was in answering the question the way in which he did, such moments of sanity are rare in our current political landscape—when they do occur, we should notice and applaud.
