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integrity, respect from their sons, chastity in their
daughters, and modesty and fidelity in their wives.
How can they rate as successful a society that
produces a 40 percent divorce rate, punk rock or a
situation where one out of every four young children
risks being sexually assaulted? What is the use of a
modero city if it isn't safe to go out in? l ronically, it
is the poorest countries in the world that have the
lowest crime rate.
And what is so wonderful about living to a r ipe
old age, if nobody wants you?
My wife and
T
once visited a nat ive vi llage in the
rain forests of Sarawak, where people lived a life
hardly touched by civilization. When we arrived, the
men were out on the steep mountain slopes
cultivating their crops. The women were down at the
river washing clothes. We could hear them
chattering and singing as they pounded the laundry
on the stones. The only people at home were sorne
old men who were spending their t ime making
roofing thatch for the long house, and old ladies who
were baby-sitting.
T he older chi ldren were attending a school that
had recently been opened to serve the district. The
Malaysian goveroment has been trying hard to help
these people into the 20th cent ury. But these
unsophisticated natives were not so sure they wanted
that. They were quite happy in thei r jungle
hídeaway-working hard, demanding little,
and- some might reason-"getting nowhere."
A few days later, we flew to Australia. At the
airport 1 bought a newspaper. In it there was a story
about an old lady who had been set up in a modero
apartment by her family who no longer had room for
her in their home. She_had t ripped over her vacuum
cleaner, hit her head on the coroer of her new color
television set and lain on the floor unconscious for
three days before anyone carne looking for her.
At least the old people in the native village were
living out their old age feeling useful and wanted.
Who should be showing whom how to live? Is
mater ial prosperity the standard by which success
should be judged, if that prosperity has to be
achieved at such a terrible cost of other values?
"You call us savages because we cut the hand off
a thief," a Saudi Arabian once told me, accusingly.
"But in your society, you cut off the life of your old
peoplc when you don't want them around anymore."
Who then are lhe savages?
The industrialized, consumer-oriented way of life
has come lo be known as Westeroization. Its fruits
are causing many non-Westero nations to consider
carefully if it is, after all , the way they want to go.
Sorne, like Burma, decided at the time of their
independence that it would be better to be poor than
to d rown their traditional values in a flood of foreign
a
id.
Olhers, like Iran, slammed t he doors in panic on
Westeroization- lheir leaders opling for the relative
securi ty of a "great leap backward." But even
sophisticated technocracies like J apan are taking a
hard look at the fruils of their commitment to
May
1984
materialism. Has the erosion of lradit ional values
been worth it, they ask? Is there, perhaps,
something
inherently wrong
with a way of living
that, while producing great prosperily, quickly
reduces the youths of a nation to those lowest
common denominators of degeneracy--drugs,
obscene music, gangs, d ropouts and suicide?
It is a dilemma. On the one hand, the developed
nations have made human existence more
comfortable. But they have also made it more
precarious and, sorne would say, ·1ess satisfying.
Should we then be so sure that this is the best way
for poor natíons to improve themselves? Should we
be so cr itica! of those nations that resist Westero
ways? I t is so easy to become exasperated at their
couldn't-care-less approach to life.
1
do whenever the
shower head falls in the bathtub. Many Westeroers
who t ry to help give up in despair. They berate the
nat ives for their lack of " Protestant work ethic,"
fume because they prefer to live by the calendar
rather than the clock, and are outraged by their
customs and rel igions.
No thinking person could dispute that clean
water, regular food, adequate shelter, sewers,
electr icity and education would improve the quality
of their lives. But if it comes at the cost of broken
family t ies, lack of respect for parents, destruction of
a community spirít and an increase in greed, .
competition, envy and crime, is it really progress?
The book of Proverbs twice records a saying of
wise King Solomon of ancient Israel: "There is a
way which seems right to a man, but its end ís the
way of death" (Prov. 14: 12, 16:25, Revised
Authorized Version).
T he way that seems right to this poor Third
World country is surely ki lling it. l t needs help, but
from whom? From other people whose ways of lífe
are
also killing them?
The young revolutionary was
right- there is no nation in the world that knows a
way that will bring peace and happiness. We have
tried everything. Sorne ways
seem
more right than
others for a time- but in the end, they all lead to
death. lndeed, the way that seems r ight to the
advanced nalions has led to the very real possibility
of
total annihilation
of all life.
There is a way that works, however. I t combines
not only the best of both worlds- material progress,
whi le retaining those values that sustain true human
happiness. It also adds a dimension totally missing in
every culture.
lt
is the way of life that J esus Christ
carne to teach lo those who would listen. Most
didn't-his way of giving, of outgoing concero for
others, of wholehearted obedience to God seemed
wrong, and they rejected it and him.
The world- all of its components, First, Second,
Thi rd and Fourth- has continued to reject that way.
lt prefers to experiment with its own ways that seem
right, and lead to death.
We can be thankful Jesus Christ will soon return
to force
al/
men to live bis way. He will show them
the way to life- as God intended it to be.
-John Halford
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