January 11 Reflections on Symptoms of a Dying Society

Under the theme of symptoms of a dying society, whatever issues that individual police officers may have, the reality is that they are the only thing keeping the lid on to a society of sinful people. Romans 13 makes this crystal clear. "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. (Recall that this was written during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, who burnt Christians alive to illuminate his midnight orgies.) "Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." (Romans 13:1-2) The passage goes on to say "For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain..." (v.4) Recently there have been several high profile cases in the USA where unarmed black men died at the hands of armed white police officers. The reality is that the only people who saw and reviewed all the evidence in the cases were the grand juries, composed of people of various races, and they declined to bring charges. The case of a black police officer killing a unarmed white teenager in Alabama received no media attention. The disparagement of police by high government officials results in the reluctance of police to fulfill their responsibilities, which leads to further breakdown. When people have no confidence in the ability or desire of police to protect them, many will decide to protect themselves, leading to further anarchy. Another symptom of a dying society is the increasing need of biographers to thrust themselves into the books they write about their ostensible subjects. A few years ago a biographer was lauded for making up incidents in the life of an American president, as if this was praiseworthy. This authorial intrusion, where the biographer feels compelled to offer his usually worthless value judgments on the subject of his biography, rather than telling us the facts about the person's life, is ever more prevalent. Those who wish to learn about the life of someone are instead treated to condescending elitism on the part of the allegedly know-it-all biographer. Another symptom of a dying society is a dying church. True Christianity is not just our individual relationship with God, but is the sum of people with those relationships working together to show the unconverted world the truth of the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. As I experience and witness the death of local congregations with the inevitable spiritual casualties, oftentimes this is the result of people unwilling to receive any kind of authority, or, at the other extreme, those who domineer over the flock. cf. 1 Peter 5:3