A DEADLY ILLNESS

Above the smoke, dust and headlines rising from the Los Angeles riots, one insistent word has emerged to dominate all others. That word is “Why?”

The most obvious answers are not necessarily the most discerning. Conclusions reached by the various fact-finding groups will and should receive the most careful study.

From the Christian viewpoint one thing is notable. The U. S. mind in this fall of 1965 would like to convince itself that what has taken place is the result of specific maladjustments — troubles which can be pinpointed in terms of opportunity, education and social adjustment. This and nothing more.

No one will deny that such specific problems do exist or that we should try to correct them. We ourselves must share responsibility for trying to cope with the evident problems. But there are indications that the violence which has shamed Los Angeles and the entire country is something more — a disquieting symptom of a far deeper illness which has infected the very bloodstream of our country.

Like individuals, nations discover to their sorrow that sin will not just go away, that it multiplies and spreads. Greed, injustice, bitterness, violence, lawlessness, lust and above all else, ungodliness, work their own chain reactions externally and in men’s hearts.

Yet how long has it been since the public mind has been attuned to acknowledgment of God or confession of wrongdoing? For a generation, perhaps two or three, our nation has moved away from reverential fear of the Almighty, sensitiveness to sin and the need for cleansing through faith in Jesus Christ. Nothwithstanding our profession, we have in essence become a nation without a sacrifice while sin and its consequences have worked unchecked.

So America in 1965 finds herself in search of remedies. She is willing to acknowledge failures, to create commissions and committees, pass laws and even to have her social and psychological apothecaries blend costly and complex programs. But she is not ready to let God be God or to heed His Book or confess a need for turning to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.

Speaking long ago by inspiration, a prophet described another blind and floundering nation in thought-provoking terms. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither mollified with ointment” (Isa. 1:,5 6).

Will history one day record that America with all her technical knowledge and wealth and opportunity crumbled because she was blind to the need for grace and cleansing — and this in the Age of Grace?

Moody Monthly

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