In terms of social problems, I would estimate that 9 out of 10 Americans mistake symptoms for causes. Nine out of 10 accept half-truths for the whole truth. And most Christians accept half the gospel for the whole gospel (Acts 8:12). A case in point:
About 10 years ago, the state of Iowa had a 2 and 24 problem; now it is around 3 and 26. As an Iowan, when I first discovered that Iowa's black-white incarceration ratio was the worst in the nation---2 percent of Iowa's population is black, 24 percent of Iowa's prison population is black---I was shocked and dismayed. Iowa is full of decent, church going people. How could this be? What was happening? What was causing this? Did we have a repeat of Mississippi---a state full of church people yet full of poverty and racism? I discovered:
1. That most Iowans, including most Christians, didn't know about Iowa's terrible incarceration ratio---IGNORANCE. Not even preachers were speaking about this serious social evil.
2. Those Iowans who did know something about the 2 and 24 problem mostly assumed that it was proof that blacks are much more criminal than whites, 12 times more criminal in fact. Criminal justice stats tell the raw truth. Explanation: both individual responsibility and black inferiority/dysfunction.
3. Those social activists who dug a little deeper historically, who understood slavery and segregation, came up with a remnants of racism explanation. This was was a half-truth that was convincing even to fine scholars such as Harvard's brilliant historical sociologist, Orlando Patterson, the world's top expert on slavery. In 2000, even Michelle Alexander accepted the remnants of racism argument.
Since there is great truth in the saying "The historical past haunts the sociological present," remnants of racism seemed to be a convincing, compelling argument. But it was only an important half-truth posing as the whole truth. If a person already knows the truth, why look any further?
4. In addition to past systems of oppression, there is a current system of oppression---mass incarceration---that is invisible and unknown to most Americans. The first scholar to raise the possibility of a a new system of oppression was Jerome Miller, author of Search and Destroy. The criminal justice system was responsible for mass incarceration. It was given the assignment to prosecute the War on Drugs. Under the president's direction, blacks were targeted. Everyone knew that drugs were rampant in the inner city black community. Arrests and incarcerations skyrocketed. But there is one flaw in this widely believed theory; illegal drugs were equally rampant in white communities.
5. In 2010, Michelle Alexander changed her mind and became the chief advocate of a current system of oppression argument. America justice, contrary to popular opinion, is not blind, impartial; it is deliberately and systematically biased. Read The New Jim Crow.
6. Not only were whites blind to mass incarceration as a new system of oppression that was as bad as past slavery and segregation, so were the black leaders of 180 civil rights organizations as was Michelle Alexander herself for many years.
7. The same thing happens in Haiti. Some see corruption as Haiti's number one problem; true corruption is widespread, but there is a deeper cause. Some see demonic voodoo as the problem; that extreme poverty has spiritual roots. I see 500 years of oppression---both past and present---as the number one problem.
8. Among Christians, the number one problem is a gospel that does not release the economically oppressed. There are 555 reference to oppression in the OT but the American church has no theology of oppression. Christians should be specialists on oppression, be able to spot it before anyone else, but they are often blind to it.
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