| The Thin White Line: When society oversteps its boundaries |
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| Culture - Commentary |
| Written by William Dicks |
| Tuesday, 03 November 2009 06:05 |
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It is happening everywhere! In every country morality is being frowned upon. In every country society is rotting at the core. How is it that something that seems so simple as living within the bounds of morality has unravelled into a decaying mass of evil, crime and decadence? Society has lost its moorings in Biblical morality. Morality has been turned on its head wherever Biblical morality had been snubbed. What has happened? Society has crossed the thin white line! When I was still working in Johannesburg, everyday on my way to work I would see people crossing the thin white line. It was a daily occurrence! As I would approach the off-ramp where I had to get off the highway, with about one hundred meters left, there would no longer be a broken white line to separate the lanes of the highway. From that point onward until just after the off-ramp, the left lane is separated from the middle of the three-lane highway by a solid white line: the thin white line! This solid white line indicates to all drivers of vehicles on this highway that it has now become illegal to change lanes from the middle lane to the left lane as long as the thin white line is solid!  However, the thin white line has become meaningless to many driving on our highways. This is simply indicative of our attitudes to the thin white line of society! Society unravels when we no longer take into consideration the thin white line of society. We are losing order in society because of this attitude. Once we lose order in society with no incentives to return to order, we stare anarchy in the face. Even worse, when government has lost its own order—the order given to it by God; the mandate given to it by God to rule justly—then it has lost its right to any claim of governing society. Once this has happened, anarchists can rule because government has no mandate to rule the nation! How did it occur that man so easily crossed the thin white line? Udo Middelman writes in the introduction to Francis A. Schaeffer’s book Death in the City that “[t]here is death in the city when the understanding of the human being about himself is no longer related to an actually existing God. For then human beings inhabit an impersonal world of their own shifting values and their own power plays. Without a knowable God in heaven, man is left without real meaning and morals on earth.”1 How is it that man lost this order, this death in the city? Man has abandoned God, and in this apostasy from the God of his past, he has lost the work of God in his heart and in his society! The work of God has always been that of building character in man and caring for our neighbour. However, now, the work of man is for personal advancement and acquiring material things to make living life easier. Order is lost, because man has turned inward and no longer regards others of any importance. Personal advancement—looking out for “number one”—has become the highest calling in life! Long ago Jesus explained that our neighbour is anyone we might happen to bump into. Today my neighbour is me! Order in our society has been lost. Order used to be others first, then myself. Today, order is me first, and hardly ever are others’ needs contemplated. Today, a woman who chooses abortion instead of birth for her baby is praised, since she chose the path of personal “reproductive health.” In our quest for personal fulfilment and happiness, abortion is seen as just another simple operation, perhaps something like liposuction. It is just another blob of human tissue that is removed. Life has lost its meaning because man has chosen to walk the roads of life alone without the real existing God! How should the offenders of the thin white line be treated? My contention is that they should be treated as with any other violation of the law. Obviously, simply crossing a solid white line in one’s car should not lead to a jail sentence. Yet, since it is not a jail-time sentence does not mean that offenders should not be shown the full strength of the law! James 3:2 tells us “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” (NASB) The point is this, if I break but one law, I have become a law breaker, and law breakers must experience the sentencing of the law. In some cases it should be a simply monetary fine. In other cases it should be jail time or even the death penalty in certain cases. Too many of us think that we must not keep the police busy with petty things like jay walking or crossing solid white lines. However, if we minimise the little petty offences, soon we will minimise the bigger offences. This ultimately will lead to a society lead by anarchy, since no law will be seen as important enough to be enforced. New York’s rampant crime led to a city not safe to live in. In New York, the broken-window theory was taken to heart. This theory simply states that when a building has a broken window long enough, it will attract people to break more windows. When society realises that nothing is being done about the disorder and disarray of communities, it will attract more elements to further this disorder in society. “In the early 1990s, New York Police Chief William Bratton took the broken-window theory to heart and persuaded New York’s newly elected mayor and tough ex-prosecutor Rudolph Guiliani to give the theory a try. The order went out to police in Precincts 69 and 75 and to Brooklyn…to ‘fix broken windows’—that is, to arrest petty offenders and clean up the neighbourhoods. The police adopted a policy of zero tolerance for any violation of public order, and in the process they soon discovered that there is indeed a ‘seamless web’ between controlling petty crime and restraining major crime.”2
What they discovered in New York and other cities employing the same strategy against crime is that as they apprehended people for violating these “petty” crimes, they would inadvertently apprehend serious criminals, from drug dealers to violent offenders of the law. As we return order to society, starting with the small things, we will find that society can once again live at peace with itself. Society can enjoy peace, once again, as well as live in harmony with one another if they follow the moral order. Since we are fallen beings we are in need of “an ordered civil life”3 to assist us toward living and working peaceably together. South Africa’s moral order was done away with at the stroke of a pen, when the new constitution was ratified in 1996. With the forces of evil arrayed against the kingdom of God, we can see what Edmund Burke meant when he said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing. The church was caught napping when the new constitution took effect. For it is this document that scraped God from the surface of South African soil. It is this document that eliminated the fact that we are a people together under God! Yet, the church was very happy with its “shake, rattle and roll” movement that came from Toronto. The church was very happy it seems, even though in a few short years laws were enacted that legalised abortion, pornography and homosexuality. The “holy huddle” was in high “spirits” while the very moral fibre of our nation eroded away into the abomination that it is today! While the Christians of the country’s modern church were having their “parties” before the Lord, the country died spiritually. In ten years of so-called “democracy” (from 1994) South Africa has gone from what was thought to be mostly a Christian country to a definite post-Christian pro-humanistic country. This country has lost its original moorings in its God of the Christian Bible and is now drifting in the slime of evil and crime. The proof of this can be seen in the elections of 14 April 2004 where only 1.6% of the people voted for the dominant Christian party. It is said that probably the greatest revolution is not the French revolution or even the Russian revolution, but the revolution of the 1960s especially in America. In one decade the US went from Christian to post-Christian. There was great upheaval in the American society in the 60s. However, I would say that another revolution has occurred, right here in South Africa, and it did not even cause a stir! It also took a decade. It took ten years, from 1994 to 2004, and there was no upheaval. South Africa’s post-Christian march seems to be well on its way! The thin white line had been crossed in our society and no one sounded the alarm! How will we maintain order in this country when the church has become nothing more than a sleeping giant? The moral conscience of the country has gone to sleep and that while the country is slipping deeper into the abyss of selfishness, materialism and humanism! How will we as a nation return to the correct side of the thin white line? It can only happen if the church stands up to show society the way! It is time that the church starts preaching the gospel in all earnestness again. It is time that the church, once again like the prophets of old, stands up to call sin what it is, sin! We should stand up as one before a government that has declared itself supreme, even over God, and make it listen to reason. The government should know when it has made laws that violate the very Laws of God! It should be told that abortion, pornography and homosexuality violate the Laws of God. It is time for our society to learn once again what is right and what is wrong. It should be taught, just like a child, about morality. This country finds itself in the precarious position that it calls evil good and good evil. It has lost its sense of morality. It should be taught correctly once again. Who will stand up for the Lord in these times? Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, will you stand up and be counted! Endnotes [1] Schaeffer, Francis A., Death in the City, Introduction by Udo Middelman, Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 2002, p13. [2] Colson, Charles, How Now Shall we Live? Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 1999, p364. [3] Ibid., p365. Copyright © 2004-2009 [ Sovereign Truth ]. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced in any form whatsoever for financial gain, or in any commercial product whatsoever without the consent of Sovereign Truth. However, this document may be reproduced in non-commercial products, such as church bulletins, e-mail distribution lists, etc if this copyright section is included or if credit is given to Sovereign Truth and the author. |
| Last Updated on Tuesday, 03 November 2009 07:02 |