In reality, the three areas...[of the economy, health care and U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan] are simply part of the chaos that engulfs contemporary Western society. Other manifestations of that chaos include the widespread breakdown of authority and personal responsibility, the increase in violence, the loss of respect for others and of a personal sense of decency and restraint, the political hysteria in radio and TV talk shows from both the right and the left – and on the list could go.

Twenty years ago, I wrote that Western society at that time exhibited characteristics commonly associated with insanity, including obliviousness to reality, absorption in a self-contained world of one's own invention, obsession with trivia and domination by paranoia. It was motivated by the contradictory drives of self-love and self-hatred and driven impulsively toward self-destruction. In other words, society, I said, was clinically insane. I see no reason to modify that observation today.

From a biblical perspective, we have been handed over to what English versions of the New Testament translate as "the wrath of God." For the apostle Paul, however, the wrath of God is not God's angry attack upon the world, but is God's withdrawal from the world, God's handing the world over to its own desires.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Theology • Eschatology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology

1. Helen wrote: I thank Mr. Davenport for putting into a few pithy words the concept I have been struggling to express lately:  “...sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.”  It seems to me that all our society cares about is “what works” - from medical technology, to food propagation and distribution, to how to travel from place to place.  This leads to a utilitarian ethic, which is not, emphatically not, a Biblical ethic.  Lord, have mercy. November 19, 10:44 am | [comment link]

2. magnolia wrote: ‘...all those things that truly make us human having been sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.’ although i think the basic message is spot on, i think the last thing we have achieved is efficiency. that image conjures up smooth running processes with no waste and no emotion, the best way to get a job done. i don’t see that in our society at all, in fact i see the exact opposite happening…on both sides. November 19, 11:37 am | [comment link]

3. TridentineVirginian wrote: I agree with this completely. Did we really believe God would look the other way after handing up 50 million of our children to Moloch? And that is just one damnable thing we’ve been up to these past 40 years, there are many more. #2 - quite right but that’s the nature of these things. The pursuit of any good without God leads only ultimately to its miserable opposite. November 19, 1:03 pm | [comment link]

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