Rioters.. All Of Us

The British Daily Mail had an article by Max Hastings, linked on the Drudge Report, that begins Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent brutalised youngsters. Hastings brings a hard message on the riots that England is experiencing but a vastly incomplete one. He writes that the normal rioter lives a "life of absolute futility....illiterate beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and Blackberries." He continued, "Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community...the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want." He lays the blame in Britain of the "breakdown of families...the social engineering industry (and) the judiciary (that sides with it) in that the law appears to be there to protect the rights of the perpetrator, and does not support the victim." "How do you persuade children to renounce bad language when they hear little else from stars on the BBC?" he challenges. His stated answer to this is "Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters such as those of the past four nights..." One of those rioters arrested was an 18 year old girl, a possible future Olympian runner, and Olympic ambassador from Britain! This, as an American possible future Olympian skier was involved in a similarly hideous incident here. This problem transcends economics into our spiritual beings. Aside from a minority, strong and faithful as they are, Britain has long since forsaken the one who enabled them to rise in stature in this world. Their great preacher of the 19th century, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, warned of what was to come as he saw the watering-down of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his country. The Victorian Age became the culprit and Britain has since descended into the quagmire of misplaced empathy that enslaves it. Yes, liberal dogma destroyed the foundation of Britain and is doing so here in the name of American Progressivism. In both cases it deemed itself so much more intelligent than its creator and so more savvy than the Word given to us by that creator. It attempted to assuage its own guilt in rejecting God by applying to itself the mantle of administrators of compassion on everything that runs contrary to God's commands, and also to man's law. It proclaimed that "we are here for the minority" but have only hurt and impoverished them more, that "we are going to advance women's rights" but have hardened the God given blessedness of woman and have in reality demanded for women the overbearing arrogance and hedonist character that we men have made an art form of, it has said "we will advance the cause of the immigrant" but has eaten away at the opportunity even the illegal immigrant comes here for while disparaging the blessings the legal immigrant had already given us, it has boasted that "we will protect the children" but has left them scavenging amongst the many predators who profit from their lack of guidance. Our best efforts, mine included, are tinged with self-preservation. Our gated-communities are not an answer, even for those who live in them, for they give only a temporary relief, a small geographic safe-haven from a world run amok. The toys of smart phones, computer games and Facebook hurt more than they help but we have elevated them, and the many other trivialities of life, to evidence of success and happiness. We have become experts in promoting health, building buff bodies and beautiful appearances to the detriment of our souls, any real peace of mind, and any true joy. Social programs and entitlements are not the answer and even law and order cannot contain a spirit of rebellion that wants no part of God. Max Hastings quoted another in using the term "feral humans" in describing the rioters, and that would be an apt description of us all if there were not a truer one, for it is man's fallen nature that every one of us deals with. So many in the history of Liberalism and Progressivism deny this. We are basically good they say, in need of only a sound mind that can be engineered, but we are basically bad, in need of a sound mind that comes only by grace. We all riot every time when we rebel against God. We all loot when we fashion a gospel of our own making, a god of our own liking and a christ of our own creative imaginings. There will never be a shortage of rioters until Christ comes again. Only God's grace can insure that the rioter is isolated where he does not feed on the ambivalence of the majority, nor is egged on by others of like minds, nor planted in total darkness where the light of the gospel cannot point the way. Both Britain and America teeter on the edge where riots will be the least of our worries. As bleak as the situation is, and it has never been bleaker, not during the Civil War, nor on December 7th, 1941, and not as Rebellion became our middle name as our visible collapse began in the 1960s, our only hope is in the omniscience and omnipotence and mercy of Almighty God. One way or the other America and Britain will prostrate itself before Him, either in fear as He comes in judgement or in thankfulness as His Spirit melts our collective hearts.