People like to talk about “root causes” these days sometimes coming up with things like poverty, lack of education, and discrimination. The apostle Paul was clear about the root cause of bad behaviors. See what you think:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him…Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity…because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator,…For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions…And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Excerpts from Romans 1.21 – 31, ESV, emphasis on “root cause” mine)

Some would say that if we don’t give up all these bad behaviors, God will judge us. Make no mistake, this is the judgment – judgment for failure to acknowledge God.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1.18, ESV)

Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. (Jeremiah 2.11, NIV)