President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the "War on Poverty" in his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. Although well intended -- after all, we would like to eliminate poverty -- this would have a detrimental impact in several areas over time. Churches and charitable organizations would play less of a role in assisting the poor not only in supplying food, clothes, and other needs, but also in guiding them to take personal responsibility and training them to provide for themselves. As a result, the spiritual guidance, which previously came from those organizations, was eliminated in the life of the community. As the Federal Government programs grew and rewarded bad behavior and irresponsibility, poorer communities began realizing they received more benefits by having more children out of wedlock. Therefore, there was greater dependence on an increasingly Socialist government that worked at eroding Judeo/Christian morals and ethics and replacing them with new ethics -- the new ethics of self. Hard work, taking risks, entrepreneurship, and business success came to be viewed as evil, and Capitalism was made the "boogey man" and cause of all the world's ills.
L.L. (Don) Veinot, Jr, "The End of Comfortable Christianity?" Midwest Christian Outreach Journal, Summer-Fall 2014.
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