A moral collapse?
Dear Friends,
We were on holiday in France while the riots were taking place in England. It was odd seeing them on the news – especially pictures of Birmingham – and also hearing about them from people we met there. Nevertheless, a number of thoughts occur:
We all have a tendency to be quick to justify our own sins, and perhaps even quicker to condemn the sins of others. Didn’t Jesus say something about the log in our own eye and the speck in the other’s eye? So, an aggrieved looter justifies theft by complaining that wealth is unjustly distributed in society. Meanwhile, others of us rail against violent destruction by rioters while remaining unconcerned about the conditions they live in. This is not to justify sin, but to ask that we be honest about it, especially our own.
For example, which of us can honestly say we can’t imagine ourselves ever looting a shop if we had the chance? I don’t think I’d do it, and I hope I wouldn’t, but I’m not totally confident that I would never succumb to such a temptation. I know too much of my own track record of doing things I know are wrong, and thought I’d never do.
And has there been a ‘moral collapse’? Yes, of course there has. But it would be a mistake to think that it’s only happened recently and only concerns some (other) people. In the Bible, this collapse is called the Fall and it took place when the first man and woman acted as if they knew better than God – and we’re all involved in that.
Chris Hobbs,
Vicar.