Regarding a World Gone Mad

16,000 policemen on the streets, 1,100 arrest in four nights, over $150 million in damages to be paid for by British taxpayers. Those are just some of the numbers from the continuing riots going on in the U.K. right now. For the past four nights, Britain has been torn asunder by gangs of youth looting and destroying everything in their path. The government has had to boost police presence to massive levels, and it has even gotten so bad that Parliament has had its vacation cancelled (you know its bad when the government cancels vacations).

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.