Presidents from both parties, congressmen, government workers, and the media seem oblivious to the fact that small business is the economic engine of America and where true prosperity and economic growth is in the world. In Marc Nuttle’s remarkable book, Moment of Truth, he writes about one of the most important insights possibly ever stated by a leader of China. Former Time correspondent, David Aikman, interviewed the retiring head of state in Communist China in 2002, Jiang Zemin, and asked what he wished for in regard to China’s future. His response shocked Aikman and much of the world when he replied:

     I would like for my country to become a Christian nation.

     When asked “Why,” Zemin’s response was an amazing revelation. He explained how a panel of Chinese scholars had spent twenty years studying why China continually lagged behind the West in science, industry, and culture. After considering every possible explanation, they concluded that it was the religious heritage of the West that had allowed it to reach such heights. The statement of these Chinese scholars was:

     One of the things we were asked to do was look into what accounted for the success; in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because of a more powerful military. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic systems. But in the past twenty years we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. This is why the West is powerful. The Christian moral foundation of the social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this. (Quoted from, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Changing the Global Balance of Power, by David Aikman.)

     By allowing more and more economic freedom, China has begun to mightily use this powerful economic force that simple freedom is. However, as Jiang Zemin understood, it is not just economic freedom that enabled America and the West to rise to such heights—it was its biblical worldview. There was purpose behind the prosperity. However, in the greatest economy ever developed, this most basic connect is being lost now in the United States. To the expressed shock of the leaders of the two most powerful former communist states, Russia and China, America, the forerunner and premier founder of the most powerful economic force in history, is now abandoning its biblical worldview as the former communist countries are embracing it. I prophesied that this would happen in a book I wrote in 1988, The Harvest, but I confess that watching it happen is still shocking to me.

     As we have covered, studies have shown that small businesses create more than 70 percent of all new jobs in America, and most of these are family run businesses. The most powerful drive of this incentive is family, and family is held together by faith. As all of this has eroded in America, so has the basic infrastructure that could sustain America’s continued prosperity and strength.

     At times, Scripture makes a distinction between riches and wealth. Riches tend to come easily and quickly and leave just as easily and quickly. However, wealth is the result of sound planning, faithfulness, patience, and endurance. Wealth comes much more slowly and with more difficulty, but will last for generations and usually multiplies if the same principles that created it are continued. Wealth is more than a balance sheet or money in accounts—it is resources gathered for a purpose. These resources are usually pursued by a family or families together.

     Likewise, America built wealth because it was driven by purpose. This was never true of all, but it was true of the core of America. This purpose stayed on course because of the morals and values that guided the majority. However, the most dangerous elements were released into the culture of America when this majority became “the silent majority.” As Karl Marx taught, the tiny minority of the passionate will control the majority who are passive. This is how America is being taken over today by forces which are contrary to everything that built America into such a great and powerful nation.

      The tipping points of history have usually come through the small but passionate minorities. Now, for more than half a century, small but loud minorities have dictated more and more of the direction of America. The vast majority, who has by far the great numbers required to turn this around, have become more and more passive. Without a wake-up, soon the downward spiral into centralized control will be hard to reverse, but it is not there yet, and there does seem to be an amazing awakening to this threat. This is kind of like the Gulf Coast oil spill in which we keep discovering that the situation is actually much worse than we thought. There may have never been a time when more citizens are actually reading the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, studying our national history, and even reading bills being passed by Congress, when it seems few congressmen are doing this. This is a foundation for hope.