Do you ever wonder why human advancement has taken an almost vertical upward spike, while our ethics have not? As I see the world ache with wars and deadly dysfunction, I think about this paradox with sadness and bewilderment.
Going on a brief promenade through the curves of history, we see a steady but slow rise in advancement with the Greco-roman periods (300 BC to 500 AD). Then there’s a thousand years or so of relative intellectual malaise (500 to 1500 AD), a period known as The Dark Ages or the Middle Ages. The Renaissance (the 14th – 17th centuries) saw an awakening for the arts and the classics, followed by the Enlightenment period (the 18th century), a time when reason was celebrated. Next came Industrialization (1760-1840 AD), followed by rapid advances in medicine and technology and almost all the sciences for the last 150 years. In the last 500 years, particularly in the last century, our progress is astounding.
But the human condition remains almost as hopeless as ever. True, many countries have developed their own constitutions and bills of rights that affirm human dignity. Many societies hold in high regard certain freedoms, like that of expression and assembly. However, when I look at the wars, famines, and deadly, selfish nature of humanity, I see that we kill each other in more efficient ways now, using these same advances to our diabolical ends.
We need thinkers and philosophers. We need leaders and statesmen and women to help divert us from our fallen nature that entices us to recklessly and violently harm one another. Or is that what we need? We can safely argue that we already have the best thinkers, philosophers, leaders, and statesmen and women.
So, is there hope for humanity? What is your answer? Mine is this: There is no hope outside of God redeeming us to Himself, no hope apart from people coming to Him and surrendering to His grace.
What then shall we do? The highest good we can do is to bring Jesus into our world and sphere of influence, to seek the Kingdom of God and bring it near.
