Bursting the Bubble

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of birth pains.  Matt. 24:6-8

The banner headline in this morning's local newspaper is "Summer of Human Suffering" and has pictures of this summer's horror stories in Israel-Gaza, the Ukraine, Syria, etc., etc. and spends one-third of the space of hand-wringing wondering what went wrong with the the globally-connected world, the post-Cold War world of mutual interests in which all sorts of human suffering would be "...lessened, if not eradicated, by advances in technology and human collaboration." Sigh. The key line in the front page that tips off the befuddlement of the author is: "It is as if 'Lord of the Flies' has come to life." Sorry to burst your bubble folks -he never went away. 

We in America have lived in a privileged bubble precisely because we have paid the price since 1941 to build and maintain a preeminent military. This was made possible by a dynamic economy and a widely-held understanding that there was evil in the world and America had a leading role in helping to restrain it. Today, unfortunately we have none of the above and we are now beginning to see the consequences of its passing. 

To be sure, we have to have compassion on the innocents wounded by war. Individually, we need to spend our time and resources to help these people. If development efforts can be safely and effectively undertaken, then that should be done too. This is also true at the governmental people. Americans have always been a compassionate people and we would be untrue to our nature to be otherwise. But...

The world will always be a place where, as Scripture reminds us, will be filled with wars and rumors of wars and natural disasters because its people and the world itself are all broken. Solomon said it well when he said that there is nothing new under the sun. That was as true then as it is now. Bad things happen a lot faster because of technology but the people unleashing it would have been totally recognizable by Solomon as to their motivations and inherently evil nature. As we move into the future, if America is to regain its footing and enjoy a relatively safe existence, we will have to relearn the lessons that the Greatest Generation and others before it going all the way back to the Founders learned the hard way. Again and again.