Supposedly, all this chaos is due to the police shooting of a young black man in London. However, many news outlets are starting to realize that the true causes for this unrest lie much deeper. Anthony Faiola, in an article for the Washington Post, says
"Whatever the reason, the riots have exposed a desperate youth culture buried inside British society, with people linked to one another as never before through text messaging and social networking sites...
The violence in Britain has differed from the kind of politically charged protests seen recently in Greece and Spain in response to hard economic times. In Britain, the rage has appeared blind, apolitical and profoundly selfish. Looters set alight a historic department store, a Sony distribution center and tiny, family-owned groceries. They have burned the bikes of poor residents and the cars of richer ones. One gang of masked thugs burst into a fashionable Notting Hill eatery to rob diners, clashing with restaurant workers wielding rolling pins. Other rioters simply fought one another."Faiola does seem to start hinting at what I think is the real problem here, and that is "a breakdown of family values years in the making." For years now, Great Britain has been on the forefront of secular humanism. It legalized abortion in 1967, and allowed for homosexual "civil partnerships" in 2004. It has prided itself on getting rid of Christian culture in place of the new humanism.
And this is where it has come. Laws favoring abortion and homosexual unions were supposed to make the U.K. a better society. They were supposed to be laws that let people live how they wanted with who they wanted. In a word, they were supposed to give people the chance to be happy. Instead, though, the secularism behind these laws has created a vast emptiness within the hearts of Great Britain's youth. This upcoming generation has been taught to deny God, to deny His love, and now the emptiness in their heart is showing forth in these riots, which are almost becoming a past time in Great Britain.
As a society, the U.K. has turned away from God and towards consumerism. In response, the youth now send text messages that say, "Everyone run wild, all of London and others are invited! Pure terror and havoc & Free stuff. Just smash shop windows and cart out da stuff u want!" We are witnessing what happens when man looks for fulfillment in all things but God. Eventually he wakes up and realizes his deep unhappiness. Then, he turns to anger and rage as means to fill the hole.
We must pray for the U.K., and we must take warning here in the states. The U.K. is several steps ahead of us, but we're on the same road as them. I hope these riots may be a lesson for us, that the lies of the culture of death do not bring happiness but only anger. Only Christ can bring true happiness, and true peace.
Alcoholism on a pandemic level is another consequence of the more broadly-based cultural disease that is causing such fallout in Western countries, especially in Britain.
ReplyDeleteThe less a population imposes moral restraint on itself, the more restrictive its government must be to keep order in its society. That's the sad truth.
As disparate as their views were regarding religion, many of this country's founding fathers were adamant in stating that the virtue of a society's citizens determines whether or not they can actually handle the responsibility of freedom.
I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here, but the point of all this is to point out that republican government, which is one of the greatest achievements of Western civ., will subtly slide into authoritarian statism if we don't find a way to revive a culture of personal and moral responsibility.