If This Isn't Heaven, I Don't Know What Is

Biblical Reasons Why We Should
And Practical Suggestions on How We Can
Create Heaven on Earth

Is the World Getting Better or Worse?

Spiritual Progress

Some social trends, of course, indicate deterioration not improvement over the past 30 to 40 years, as William Bennett and Robert Bork have emphasized. There have been worrisome increases in family breakup, abortions, illegitimate births, and teen suicide, for example. Violent crime rates have drifted upward—in the 1920s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, for example —and downward—in the 1930s and 1990s, for example—with no immediate sign of long-term improvement. However, there are glimmers of good news. In recent years, most of these troubling trends of social decay have been improving, and for almost all the other social problems, the arrow points to improvement on a grand scale.

These are closer to the kinds of social ills that futurists often point to as examples of how things are getting worse and worse and therefore this cannot be the Kingdom of God and Christ must return shortly.

Let's look at the items mentioned in the Cato Study:

family breakup,
- in the days of the Apostles, the Roman Empire routinely conquered nations, broke up families, and enslaved millions.
- in pre-industrial ages, children worked 10 hours a day, and bare survival often crowded out family vacations; "family night" was unheard of.
- most children never enjoyed "family," because they died of now-conquered diseases before the age of 5.
- In these was the family is stronger than it's ever been.
- It is not, of course, as strong as it could be, but that's because too many Christians proclaim a gospel of defeat, telling us that family breakup has been predestined during these "last days." We might also consider another category not mentioned in the Cato Study:
marriage
- It's been said that financial pressures are the number one cause of divorces. Financially, marriages have never had it so easy.
- A Google™ search under "marriage seminar" finds 370,000 web pages. WalMart carries books on how Christians can improve their marriage. People are thinking about marriage and purposefully working on bettering their marriages, and spending money on books, seminars, and tapes. You didn't have this "marriage industry" 100 years ago.
- Homosexuals, in an effort to gain social legitimacy, are seeking government marriages! If marriage were dead, it would be no social advantage to be married. Marriage is very much respected in our day.
abortions,
- 50 years ago, in 1954, due to Christian influence, abortions were far more rare than they were in the days of the Apostles. Rushdoony notes that "in the Roman Empire .... abortion was readily and freely practiced."
- Abortion is more prevalent today than it was 50 years ago precisely because of the view that we are in the "last days" and abortions are predestined to increase. This is a tragic self-fulfilling prophecy.
illegitimate births,
- Historically, since the days of the Apostles, illegitimacy increases under conditions of poverty and ignorance.
- Despite the decrease in poverty, illegitimacy has risen in the last 50 years precisely because Christians have abandoned all efforts to stem the tide and have become willing to be culturally irrelevant.
and teen suicide, for example.
- Teen suicide is an intensely spiritual problem. It is the result of a childhood that has been stripped of meaning in schools that ban "religion and morality."
- When the U.S. Supreme Court banned religion and morality from government schools, Justice Douglas admitted that:
  - Religion was once deemed to be a function of the public school system. The Northwest Ordinance, which antedated the First Amendment, provided in Article III that "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
- Christians today don't make efforts to Christianize the means of education. They tell suicidal teens that things are going to get worse and worse, but if they will just "believe," they will go to heaven when they die. This is supposed to prevent teen suicide?
Violent crime rates have drifted upward
- Christians have completely lost touch with the power of the Reformation and the American Revolution, which were Christian in motivation, and resulted in great social improvement.
- Violent crime was much greater during the Roman Empire than it was in Calvin's Geneva, Knox's Scotland, and Witherspoon's America.
- During the last 2000 years, crime rates have not increased. But wherever we see the rise of "futurism" and "everything's getting worse and worse and "Christ is going to return at any moment," we have seen crime increase. This should come as a surprise to nobody. Attempting to Christianize society and reduce crime is seen as contrary to God's will in "these last days."
- Will God bless this kind of self-righteous indifference?

I did a search on Google™ for the phrases "things are not getting better" and "last days" In the next essay I will analyze the number one web page that came up from this search. We will see that the broad trend over the last 2,000 years has been steady spiritual improvement as the Church acts as the salt of the earth and a light unto the world. Only since the rise (in the last 200 years) of the idea that things are getting worse and worse and Christ must come "any day now" has this great progress been eroded.

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