My theory "Busted"

Yes, my Theory Crashed & Burned

Last week my theory crashed and burned. As I looked at the Bible prophesies about judgement on non-Israelite nations, I found they did not support the theory I was developing. Embarrassing, yes: but the truth is far more important than any pet theory!

What I thought would be the case was this: The West has cast off God (that is true enough) therefore they have lost their moral compass (also likely true) therefore they have done bad things to a degree which brings about punishment from God.

What I actually found in the Bible was this: Nations did get punished for doing really bad things but the sort of things they were condemned for doing were the sort of thing ISIS is doing now in the middle east – crimes which the Western nations are uniformly recoiling from in horror and moral disgust. In short the Western nations, for all their faults have not been really bad.

Then I also saw a danger of opening the door to progressive moralists who have thrown away the Biblical standards of good and evil, and created their own quite different standards.

The Bible judges phenomena like the social acceptance of “abortion-on-demand” and of sexual immorality which in turn leads to high rates of divorce, with the inevitable follow-on of high incidence of child abuse, as really bad. But progressive moralists applaud these, and bring in their own definition of “evil”: such as Christians being “intolerant”; “capitalism” being inherently evil; failing to “save the planet” as the crime of crimes, and so forth.

One result of this both in Australia and the US, is a political dogma that incites people to hate and deride their own country and culture. This may not be completely new – the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta “The Mikado” has a line about the person “who praises every age but this and every country but his own”. But it is now a very vocal movement.

I do not believe for a moment that this national “self flagellation” is any more wholesome or useful than the medieval personal version.

Yes, our nations in previous and current generations have done bad things. Yes, just as we need to let God search our hearts and to repent and change our ways in personal life, so there needs to be the equivalent in national life. But honesty, not false modesty and false confession is required.

Compared to nations around the globe and back through history, we have been relatively virtuous.

Just remember that at one time that ruthless tyrant Colonel Gadaffi got to be chairman of the UN Human Rights commission! Maybe we should not take criticisms of Western nations by such bodies as necessarily being true!

Another anecdote that comes to mind is this: The mantra has long been that the British colonial system was terribly wicked. But some decades ago I heard a (black) African bishop talk. He said two things that have stuck with me. The first was “You gave us the Gospel. That was good. But you gave it away: you don't have it yourself any more. That is very bad!” the other was this: “In Education and health, in quality of life and quality of government, African nations have yet to return to the levels they enjoyed under colonial rule.” So maybe our forebears were not so bad as they are being made out!

Perhaps the most important flaw in this modern national self loathing is this: these criticisms come from judging our nations by Progressive morals (sometimes even when they come from church leaders and dressed up in Bible verses!) not Biblical morals. And as previously said, progressives for all their good intentions frequently end up calling right wrong and wrong right.

Back to the story ...

Since my previous theory is – as they say on the TV show “Myth Busters” - “Busted!” I need to think again.

My next idea to explore comes from Romans 1, particularly v.21: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” and the thrice recurring theme in verses 24, 26 and 28 “therefore God gave them over to ...”

Our nations did know God. But theological liberals have pushed the knowledge and fear of God out of most churches and rejected the Bible. Concurrently secularists and then Progressives have pushed the knowledge of God and having God the supreme goal of human life and the basis for right and wrong out of most of our social institutions, and swept away social mores based on the Bible's teachings.

Is it possible that God has given out nations over to the natural consequences of this?

Are our cultures declining because we abandoned God as their basis. Are western nations self-destructing because God has given us over to our human folly. One example might be Greece: They have huge economic problems; but the populace vote out governments who advocate the hard path back to national health and vote in ones who promise “an end to austerity” even though this is the path to utter ruin.

Next time I will see if this idea can stand up to a Biblical reality test!