How can we avert civilizational collapse?
by Wallace B Henley, Christian Post:
Enjoy the New Year because time is speeding us toward civilizational collapse, according to a recent study by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Though the MIT report does not include it, there are other threats even greater than the material environment and economic breakdowns: The crash of spiritual and moral climates.
In a previous column appearing here, I quoted from a poem by Irish poet. W B. Yeats spoke of the spin to chaos and breakdowns brought on because the strategic center “could not hold.” Yeats did not identify those centers of cohesion, but many
who study social stability and strength would include a healthy worldview, and spiritual vision of the transcendent values that stretch us beyond the merely material and the sources from which those factors arise. In Western Civilization that would be
the Bible.
When, at the end of the Second World War, General Douglas MacArthur was assigned the task of restoring civilization in the Pacific – entire cultures and their societies – he said, “It must be the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”
Many students of civilization would agree that the Bible is the sturdy source of the worldview and values of Western Civilization. It has been at the center of strength, and if it is lost, the civilization dependent upon it weakens.
Jordan Peterson, a noted expert in the nature of civilization, described the Bible as the “bedrock” of Western Civilization. In fact, quality of life is a major concern of God. He revealed the principles of healthy civilization in the commands He gave Moses
at Sinai. The Lord stated that He was giving those principles so that “it would go well for” Moses and the people he was leading toward the new society birthed at Sinai.
It is forgetting God, and the fact that He made us humans the keepers, and stewards of the Paradise that God Himself pronounced as “very good.” Thus, the environmental movement is right when it calls us to remembrance of our assignment to care for the natural world. The highest quality of care will be given by people who recognize it as the creation and gift of God to humanity.
The core of moral leadership and the sense of Holy Stewardship are essential if peace and order are to establish high-quality civilizations with minimum legal enforcement.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
