Forwarded Email

This short email forward struck me to some thought.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, followed by a dictatorship."

The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." - Alexander Tyler, historian/economist, in "The Cycle of Democracy," 1778

By itself that is pretty interesting. The thought conveyed in the email was "Does this describe Democratic churches?"

After posting this, I read 1 Samuel 1-3. Eli is the priest. But his sons become selfish in the abundance.