A Survey Of My Grief Series

Grief touches each of us eventually. [1] Though we know we will experience grief as individuals, we sometimes need to be reminded that grief will consume the nation that turns from righteousness while embracing wickedness. Some might suppose that Christians will gloat when judgement at last comes on those who have been warned of the judgement that lies before them. Christians, those who know the Lord God, those who are twice-born children of Heaven, can never exult when judgement comes to a nation. Those who walk with the Risen Saviour will feel more keenly than any others the pain that attends divine judgement on the nation in which they live.

The future of our culture, the future of modern society, will be a return to the past. The path by which our culture returns will lead either to a past that is marked by Christian consciousness and the centrality of godly morality, or it will lead to the pagan past in which all cultures have darkened roots. Europe is an example of the scope of history that is ignored in this day.

We tend to forget the paganism that characterised our European ancestors when power was the central purpose of societies, just as acquiring power over others was the primary goal for all individuals. All people were but cogs in the wheels of the machinery as societies ensured that only the powerful had a measure of freedom, and most people existed to serve the powerful. Violence and subjugation were the rule for societies throughout the European continent, as was also true for almost the entire world.

At last, a few bold missionaries challenged those darkened societies to know that there is One True God, and that God is Creator of all that is. He gave man his being and appointed him as responsible to reign over the creation with confidence and with care for all that God had made. These first missionaries ventured into the realms of darkness with the light of Christ, doing so at the risk of their own lives. The message they brought conquered the pagan gods that kept the people in darkness and in chains of fear, setting the peoples at liberty so they would be free as the Creator intended.

Free from the cruel bondage of the past, the people of Europe unleashed the spirit of creativity, the spirit that encourages man to think the deep thoughts of God after Him, the spirit of freedom and dignity for each man. Slavery that had once been the mark of all civilizations was abolished as the concept of freedom and dignity began to infiltrate the thinking of all. It was the prevalence of righteousness, the prevalence of the Faith of God that ensured that European culture would dominate all other cultures. It was not race, but it was righteousness, which made European culture great.

That nascent culture of righteousness was transported to the shores of the New World, ensuring that Canada and the United States would become great, based as these nations were on a faith that God created man, giving all people the rights and freedoms that God alone can give. We appear to have forgotten that no parliament, no congress, no government can give anyone life, liberty, or the freedom to become whatever one should seek to become. God alone gives mankind these freedoms, and the societies free men form reflect these freedoms as the righteous culture protects those forming that society.

Much as was true of Judah in the days leading to their conquest by the Babylonians, over the past century Europeans, people who were once free have turned from righteousness and have increasingly become pagan in their outlook. It is not that they are worshipping idols, though that does no doubt happen, it is that the people have begun to pursue power solely for the sake of power. And that trend which is so evident throughout Europe is equally true of the nations of North America. Certainly, that is true of the elite of Canada and the United States. And the attitude of seeking power for the sake of power itself filters down to the remainder of society so that even if not seeking to acquire power themselves, the people living in these nations have become tolerant of those elites who do seek power.

Rejecting who they were as a nation created by God, the nations, and the people themselves have begun to pursue new identities, each one demanding that all others accept their self-chosen identities and accompanying changes. These strange, new minorities are intent on compelling others to comply with their novel morality. Violence has begun to be elevated over reason as mobs strive to force compliance with the novel civic morality, even when that new civic morality supplants godliness. Whether Canadian culture realises what is happening or whether we are merely irritated by the social currents swirling about us, an evil is settling over our culture, an evil characterised by the pursuit of power.