Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Spike or Victoria University College Review 1933

I. What's Wrong with the World?

I. What's Wrong with the World?

The deep-rooted cause of the present world-wide chaos is found in the fact that "the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." The festering corruption found in all departments of life, whether national or international, political or social, individual and even religious is due, in the main, not to man's environment, but to man himself. That environment does play quite a large part in the formation of character, we do not deny; but to contend, as some do, that man is the unfortunate victim of his circumstances, seems to us to be very poor reasoning; for, as is apparent to any person of average powers of observation, the same circum-stances very often produce very diverse results in different people. We therefore think it safe to contend that changing the heart of man will result in a changed condition of affairs, while a forced change of environment, by means of social or political reform, however desirable, will not bring about a change of heart.

Man's inhumanity to man can "make countless thousands mourn," just as disastrously under Communism or Hitlerism as it can under any other system of human government. The problem therefore which confronts us is not how best to change the present system of government or misgovernment, but how best we may deal with the inhumanity of man.

There is a spirit abroad to-day which is prompting men to seek the elevation of the masses by other than truly spiritual means. Our belief is that no amount of reform will raise a man one degree from spiritual blindness and degradation; it may even make harder the humiliation involved in accepting Christianity. The plan which has been ordained is regeneration. No amount of patches on an old garment will make it a new one. It is a new life that must be received from above, and not a "new leaf" turned over from below. That man is spiritually dead beyond all human redemption is a fact of fundamental importance. God alone is able to perform this regenerative work in the heart of the individual who repents. While believing that it is always a part of Christian duty to ameliorate distress, the E.U. cannot be enthusiastic about schemes for bringing world peace by means of political bodies such as the League of Nations, or social uplift by methods of reform. It holds that in the Gospel of Christ alone lies the only hope for the world by the regeneration of the individual. All else consists merely of "dead works" without permanent value before God or lasting benefit to mankind.

Sin blinds, sin binds, sin deadens, sin damns. What is wrong with the world to-day is this old trouble of sin. For sin above all else means separation from God—darkness and death. Let us therefore turn in humble repentance, individually and inter-nationally to Him who alone can revitalize civilisation, and Who claims and is the first and the last and the Living One, Who was dead and is alive for evermore, and has the keys of death and the unseen—Christ the Redeemer.