The World is Getting Worse?

I get kind of tired of hearing things like, "America is becoming a secular nation" or "The whole world is falling apart" or whatever.  For one, this seems like a very depressing outlook on life.  I believe there is both bad (sin) and good (redemption) in life, and I'd think most everyone would prefer to focus on the good than the bad.  Apparently not.

But also, I don't actually believe that things are getting worse?  I could never quite formulate why I thought that until I read an essay by C.S. Lewis in God in the Dock (which, sidenote, refers to a court room dock, like God is on trial--there's no maritime connections, as I previously assumed).  Lewis talks about the worries of his day, that England was becoming less Christian.  But he gave a very specific reason why that was false.  When chapel attendance suddenly dropped at Oxford, it wasn't because people started hating Christianity.  It was because chapel stopped being mandatory.

Maybe that's what's happening.  The Christian culture at large is declining in power (and thank goodness!), but I would wager that the number of committed followers of Jesus is roughly the same as it's always been.

If someone wants to bemoan the fact that a "Christian" layering of ideals is absent from our nation, then okay.  That might be true, and if that's where someone's hope is found, then people have cause to worry.  But my hope is found in Jesus Christ, the redeemer of children, women, and men, who is not bound by nations or policies or the internet.  His Spirit is going to keep working in every country and tribe and tongue, and I'm very excited to live right here, right now, and see it happening.