David Brooks is one of my favorite commentators today. He is concise, insightful, and almost always right. His column for May 18 is once again on target. I found it interesting that as he was discussing governmental systems I was comparing that with church structures, especially denominational or other organizational structures.

But his main point on the American drift from how our Founders saw the world is a great observation. We keep wanting to do away with the thought that people have a possibility for evil. We just don’t want to admit it, and it is to our peril.

This is one of the reasons why Europe and the United States are facing debt crises and political dysfunction at the same time. People used to believe that human depravity was self-evident and democratic self-government was fragile. Now they think depravity is nonexistent and they take self-government for granted.

I remember being in seminary and the professor was about the begin his lectures on the devil. I thought of that as I think about Brooks’ quote. Before the lecture I was listening to a student behind me drone on about how there is no evil or devil in the world. Evil is just the absence of good. Blah, blah, blah.

The professor walks in and begins his lecture with this: “Some say there is a devil. Some say the devil doesn’t exist. Either way, he doesn’t care.”

Americans ignoring depravity is one thing. The CHURCH ignoring depravity is far more dangerous.