And I've heard others say that Jesus will work through the church to improve the world until the time when He returns.
I'm not a scholar or a theologian; I suspect these two ideas have technical terms, but I don't even know those. I do know what I think and what I have thought. And until recently, I was of the opinion that our world must be growing increasingly evil.
Here is some evidence:
Recently a 101-year-old woman was mugged in a corridor of her apartment complex in New York City. The man hit her in the face multiple times and stole her purse. This elderly woman needed a walker to shuffle down the hallway. If this man wanted her purse that badly, did he really need to beat her to take it? Did he need to throw her down before he walked out the door? As if she were capable of chasing after him.
A security camera caught this coward on tape. And the video, I'm warning you, is disturbing. It's the kind of video that makes you feel hollow inside. For those interested in feeling hollow inside, I'm including the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx-4qesY1D4
The second piece of evidence for our world's increasing depravity centers around a 17-year-old girl from Minnesota. This girl's best friend was her dog. Was her dog. That is, until someone kidnapped (dognapped?) it. This girl posted missing signs, went door to door asking if anyone had seen her beloved pet, and repeatedly checked the local animal shelter.
Weeks later, this girl found a present gift-wrapped for her on the doorstep of the house she shares with her grandmother. Inside, she found the severed head of her dog, her "best friend." Also included in the box were pieces of Valentine's Day candy.
What kind of psycho cuts off a dog's head? What kind of sicko wraps it up (with Valentine's candy) and gives it to a girl who's already heartbroken?
For those interested, here is the article:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/15/dog.head.ap/index.html
Of the two, I think the second story is most disturbing. I can understand (without condoning) how a drug addict could be desperate enough to mug an old lady. Well, I can almost understand that. But I can't imagine anything (other than perhaps Satan himself) motivating someone to cut off a dog's head and gift wrap it for a seventeen-year-old girl.
Our newspapers contain disturbing headlines daily: another rapist, another brutal murder, another unthinkable act--sometimes things (gift-wrapping a dog's head, for example) too heinous even for Hollywood. Considering these daily reminders of the depraved state of our world, how could anyone suggest that the world isn't steadily becoming more and more evil?
Well, two weeks ago I wouldn't have said this, but I am suggesting, tentatively, that perhaps our world is improving. Here's why.
I've had the opportunity to see Amazing Grace twice. Once in November as part of a prescreening, and again two weekends ago. Amazing Grace, in my opinion, is a pretty good movie, but one that has been poorly marketed. The story does not focus on the classic hymn, though John Newton, the man who wrote the hymn, is a supporting character in the film. The story is about William Wilberforce and his quest to put an end to the English slave trade.
The story concludes with the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, exactly 2oo depraved years ago.
This movie and a newspaper article I discovered recently detail what the slave trade looked like. Again, I'm going to provide a link. Though I will give you enough information, I think, without it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_on_re_eu/slavery_s_brokers
200 years ago, slaves were packed into English ships sailing for the West Indies. They were chained and shackled, confined in spaces the size of coffins (narrow, unpadded coffins). Depending on the weather, their journey sometimes lasted for 6 weeks. 6 weeks, or a month and a half, chained in a box. During the journey, these stuffy confines filled with human waste and blood.
Dysentary, among other diseases, was rampant on these ships. To hide the slaves' dysentary from prospective buyers, the traders shoved knotted cords into their anuses. Or into their ani, if you prefer. (Check it; it's legit.)
And when disease was too overwhelming, one ship chose to do this (quoting from the article by Robert Barr, AP):
"One of the worst atrocities was aboard the Liverpool slave ship Zong, which was wracked with disease; Capt. Luke Collingwood ordered the crew to throw 133 sick slaves overboard, then tried to claim against insurance for 'loss of merchandise.'"
This anecdote shocked me more than either of the two recent crimes. I thought about how fragile I feel, how helpless, when I'm being attacked by a serious illness. And I imagined, at the height of my sickness, being hauled to the edge of the ship by my arms and ankles and hurled into the black sea--discarded like excess cargo. I thought about hitting the cold water (still in chains, I presume; unless the slave traders didn't want to lose their valuable shackles), and I wondered if I would even try to resurface. Would I have the heart to delay the inevitable?
And then I thought about the men tossing other men (and women) overboard. And I just can't fathom it. Didn't one of them look into their eyes? Didn't one of those men grasp an ankle, an arm, and think "This is human flesh."? Didn't one man, sometime before the 133 were sinking, say, "No, we can't do this!"
The answer is no. Or if one man spoke up, his voice wasn't loud enough. Because it still happened.
This story is just one among many, one example of the suffering inflicted upon slaves. And stories like these show that depravity is not new.
And Amazing Grace shows, in the diligent efforts of William Wilberforce, our ability to combat such depravity, to improve our world.
While one man might mug a 101-year-old woman, and another (probably a man) might decapitate a dog, at least our society demands justice. New Yorkers are anxious to find their mugger (he is suspected of mugging an 85-year-old woman, as well), and a $2500 reward has been offered for information about the dognapper in Minnesota. Whereas, a little over 200 years ago, after men had been thrown into the sea, their murderers tried to get insurance to reimburse them for the loss.
When attempting to assess our world's progressing or regressing morality, however, it would be erroneous to place slavery too emphatically in the "progressing" column. While the abolition of the slave trade and the eventual outlaw of slavery (in the US and elsewhere) were landmark events, our world currently contains more than 12 million slaves. (http://www.antislavery.org/2007/about.html)
Some reports state that there are more slaves now than any other time in human history.
Today's slaves might be treated better than the men and women who were packed on boats 200 years ago; I don't know. But slavery still exists, nonetheless. So maybe a good way to judge the moral direction of our world (even our nation) is to ask:
Do we care?
Do I?
-Thanks for reading
