Why are Americans, especially those from the most beautiful and most prosperous areas of our country, so prone to a lack of faith? Rod Dreher identifies it with the Gospel verse that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. He recently returned from a vacation in California's Bay Area and noted the beautiful location and the evident wealth of the region and then his wife Julie noted the seeming paradox of most people's apparent disregard that God is the source of blessings.
She meant that the wealth and the mild climate, as well as the natural beauty, can give people the illusion that they are totally self-sufficient, and that the stern God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is incompatible with the easygoing lifestyle of the Bay Area. I often wonder why the Christian churches in that part of our world stray so far from orthodoxy. Well, to spend some time there is to feel in your bones why the temptation to apostasy is ever-present. Or so it seems to me.
On the other hand, as Rod identifies, there is a giant reminder of the illusion of self-sufficiency apart from the grace of God: The San Andreas fault.
Is your house built on rock or sand?
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The point about building on the San Andreas fault is well taken, and seems to define the culture in that part of the country. Live for now, grab what you can, for tomorrow it may all slide into the ocean. If life has enough of its own pitfalls, why go looking for them and asking for trouble?