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RELIGIOUS
REAWAKENING...
Needed inOurTinte?
by
Roderick C. Meredith
Is modern society really going to get better? What
lies ahead in our moral and spiritual future? You may be in for a shock!
W:
AT
is really going
o happen over the
ext decade or two?
Are we going to witness a
spiritual revival of brotherly
love among roen and na–
tions-and therefore a sharp
decline in crime, violence and
wars?
Or
will
it be just the
oppo–
site?
Many sincerely religious people
are hoping for what they call a "re–
ligious reawakening in our time."
They think that somehow, by
prayer and zealous efforts, the
churchgoing people can win over
the rest of the world to an accep–
tance of Jesus Christ as Savior, and
thus bring about peace and tran–
quility among all men everywhere.
But what does the Bible say?
How does Almighty Goo–
through his Word-<lescribe the
religious future of this world ,
which is absolutely
CERTAIN
to
come?
What's Happening
In America, despite an increase in
church attendance and religious
interest during the 1970s and early
1980s, crime, violence and illicit
sex have increased at a rapid rate.
As reported in a recent edition of
U.S. News
&
Wor/d Report
maga–
zine, serious crimes per thousand
persons were way up in all major
October
1983
U.S. cities. In New York City,
serious crime increased 47 percent
during that period even though
population was down. Chicago' s
serious crimes increased 61 per–
cent, in Los Angeles the increase
was 74 percent and in Philadelphia
the figure was up 143 percent!
In addition, United Press re–
ported that the number of children
born out of wedlock in the United
States increased by 431 percent
from 1970 to 1982. In 1980,
unmarried women accounted for
nearly one in five births.
Sorne may ask, "What do crime
statistics bave to do with reli–
gion?"
They have
everything
to do with
true religion. For
TRU E
Christian–
ity is not a dead belief, but a
vibrant way of life that deeply
affects our standard of conduct.
Think about it. Would a gen–
uinely "Christian" nation-a na–
tion that truly followed Jesus
Christ-have the shocking crime
statistics just cited? Would it have
tbe surging growth in the numbers
of illegitimate child r en being
born?
And wbat about other nations?
ln Britain, the
New Standard
of J une 24, 1981 , reported: "The
necessity for action gets more
imperative by the day. For 10,000
girls under the age of 16- the
legal mínimum age for mar–
riage-now become pregnant
every year . Abortions to girls
under 16 bave more than doubled
in the past 10 years to 3,500 a
year and unwanted pregnancies
among girls aged between 15 and
19, after a drop in the mid-1970s,
are on the increase again."
From the
Times
of London , this
excerpted article from tbeir París
correspondent: " 'Drug addiction in
France and the traffic of drugs
have reacbed, in París at least, cat–
astrophic proportions; medica! in–
stitutions and the police are sub–
merged by a veritable rising tide.'
So begins the 1982 annual report of
the Marmottan drug addiction cen–
tre in París.
"Drug offences in the París
region doubled last year, latest
police figures show. At the Mar–
mottan centre tbere were 2,439
new cases of heroin addiction- an
increase of 17 percent over the pre–
vious year; in the last four montbs
of 1982 the number of new heroin
cases rose by 30 percent.
"Tbe traffic in beroin is booming
and [heroin] addicts now account
for 40 percent of all drug addicts in
France, compared with only 6 per–
cent six years ago."
Is France then a Christian
nation?
And, summing up a speech given
by Britain's Prince Philip, the
Dai–
ly Telegraph
reported in October
1977:
"In a free-wheeling condemna–
tion of the proliferation of crime,
pornography, violence, internation-
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