Disintegration

There Goes the Hood

The crumbling of order and resulting self-destruction of the community start with broken windows not being fixed; next prostitutes and vagrants are allowed to loiter; soon delinquents and youth gangs realize they can act with impunity; and by then the neighbourhood is well on its way toward disintegration.  [Andrew Peyton Thomas]

Man is not an island.  Man was created to live in community.  Communities share a common life; they can exist only so long as common values, beliefs hold it together.   This is a fundamental Christian doctrine, traced all the way back to the Garden of Eden, when God declared it was not good that man should live alone.  To fight crime and the disintegration of a neighbourhood, the community has to exert itself.  This requires a co-ordinated effort between civil authorities, the police, and citizens above all.

For centuries this biblical view of communal order dominated Western thought.  In the last century, William Wilberforce, the great evangelical British statesman, noted that “the most effectual way to prevent the greater crimes is by punishing the smaller, and by endeavouring to repress the general spirit of licentiousness, which is the parent of every kind of vice.”

The same philosophy influenced the original principles of policing laid out by Sir Robert Peel in 1829.  The first job of the police, said Peel, is not fighting crime by keeping the peace.  Seventy years later, in the first New York City charter, the same principles were repeated: “it is hereby made the duty of the police department to especially preserve the public peace, . . . remove all nuisances in the public streets, . . . restrain all unlawful and disorderly conduct.”  As a result, at the turn of the [nineteenth] century it was the police who developed the first food and soup lines; they built police stations with extra space where migrants could stay until they found work; they referred beggars to charitable agencies; and yes, the even helped lost children find their way home.  [Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999), p. 366.]

In rebuilding community, or a common life, Christians and churches can play a huge part–provided they understand the Bible’s teachings on the matter, and provided they are prepared to be patient.  Many years ago we were introduced to the remarkable ministry of John and Vera Mae Perkins of Mississippi.  Chuck Colson describes their life and influence:

John (Perkins) grew up picking cotton in Mississippi, suffered beatings during the civil rights movement, and then founded Voice of Calvary ministry in Mendenhall and Jackson, Mississippi.  Today these ministry have grown to including housing rehabilitation, a thrift store, job training, a school, day care, a food co-op, and a medical centre.  The Perkins’s model of Christian community development is now being imitated across the country.

In recent years, John and Vera Mae have taken their vision to the drug-infested northwest corner of Pasadena, California.  The first time I visited the Perkins’s new home, I saw drug dealers on the street outside, pulling up in their limousines to do street-corner deals amid the garbage and litter.  I prayed with John and Vera Mae in their livng room, sitting by a window that still had a bullet hole from a drive-by shooting.

But within months, the Perkinses had turned their backyard into a play area where the neighbourhood kids could play safely and listen to Bible stories.  Soon they bought up adjoining properties and renovated them; they opened a youth centre and additional family services.  They encouraged other Christians to buy properties close by and open related ministries.  Over time, the drug dealers disappeared, crime abated, and children were playing in their front yards once more.  When I returned for another visit, I could not believe the transformation.   [Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999), p. 371f.]

The Coming of the Kingdom

Building Civilization

Human societies can tear themselves apart.  Or they can cohere and build themselves into a civilisation.  What makes the difference?  The overwhelming consensus amongst the Commentariat is technological prowess, material gadgets, and wealth make a people civilised.  Thus, nations and societies are measured and ranked in terms of GDP and living standards.  Such things may be the fruit of a civilised community but they are not its foundation.

Nor are material goods and technological skills the things which enable people to cohere into a voluntary community.  You cannot build a civilisation upon smart phones.  This may seem puzzling until one recalls that smart phones can be used to detonate explosive devices on the roadside.  As poet, Paul Simon put it:

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio . . . .

The problem with larger populations is that immediate mutual benefit arising from co-operation is not so tangible or obvious.  As Peter Hitchens reflects,

We can live at a low level of cooperation by mutual consideration.  But as soon s we move beyond subsistence and the smallest units, problems arise  that cannot be resolved by mutual decency.  Some people grow richer, some are stronger, some acquire weapons.  Power comes into being at a very early stage in human society.  So do greed, competition for scarce resources, and wars with other groups.  Mutual benefit ceases to offer any kind of guide to behaviour.  Who is to say, in a city ruled by a single powerful and ruthless family from an impregnable fortress, that the strongest man is not also always right?  [Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), p. 145.]

The apparent greed and rapaciousness is what leads so many to seek salvation in the state.  They look for a god, a powerful god, to defend them from rapacity and laying waste.  The state is all they have.  But, in a grand leap of blind faith, they forget that the state has interests of its own; historically the state has become the most rapacious and destructive of all.  Small people get ground up exceedingly finely through the lusts of the state–which ultimately are the lusts of the few with access to the levers of power.

Is is possible for a society to become civilized, and wealthy, and powerful and sustaining and free?  No longer–at least not until thoroughly Christian civil societies arise once again.  Hitchens goes on to describe some of the warp and woof of civil society necessary for civilisation–things which do not come from gadgets or cults of personality, but from the communal heart of a people.

In wars, men are repeatedly asked to undertake acts of selfless courage that they will not themselves survive.  Men are expected to be responsible for the women who bear their children for as long as they live. Women in return are expected to be faithful to those men.  For economies to develop, men must be trusted to guard valuables that are not their own.  Again and again, for civilization to exist and advance, human creatures are required to do things that they would not do “naturally” as mammals.  Marriage is unnatural.  The deferment of immediate gratification for greater reward is unnatural.  Charity is unnatural.  Education is unnatural.  Literacy is unnatural as if the passing on of lore and history from one generation to another.  (Ibid.)

Yet, without these vital elements you cannot build human society into a civilization.  But when the hearts of the people, the soul of the community has been regenerated by the Spirit of God–that is, when it has pleased God to be merciful to a people–all these vital elements seem “natural”.  Which is a half-truth.  Truly, all such duties and requirements are natural in that they are what we were made for: they are all part of God’s order and design and command.  But, being blighted by Adam’s first sin in which we all fell and having run to ape him in thousands of occasions in thought, word, and deed, such facets are foreign and contrary to our nature, so that God’s rule and law become unnatural.  It is in this sense that Christian societies can be said to be unnatural:

Christian societies as a whole are “unnatural”, requiring a host of actions that cannot be based on self-interest, however enlightened, or even on mutual obligation.  Meanwhile, the more civilized a society is, the more power is available within it.  Power cannot be destroyed, only divided and distributed.  It may shatter into an anarchic war of all against all.  Or it may solidify into tyranny.  Or it may be resolved into a free society governed by universally acknowledged laws.  But on what basis can this be done?  What agency can be used to place law above force?

A law that does not stand above brute force and have some sort of power than can overcome brute force will not survive for long.  How are inconvenient obligations, those of the banker and the messenger and the merchant, to be made binding?  How are the young to be made to accept the authority of parents and teachers, once they are physically strong enough to ignore them, but too inexperienced in life to know the value of peace and learning?  (Ibid., p. 146.)

There is no one magic switch–and we would not for a moment think that there ought to be.  The Kingdom of God is very, very thick.  Christian society likewise is a labyrinth of interlocking complexities and “little things”: attitudes and motives of heart, words of the mouth, small deeds, actions done in secret yet before the face of God–in every home, every street, every congregation, every place of business.  Such thickness is way beyond the power of man to organize or programme.  We can co-operate in this redemptive work of God, but we cannot command it at will. 

>Out of the Rubble

>The Blessings of Civility

Many of us were raised in post-Depression families where our parents constantly enjoined us to “count our blessings”. They had known to an extent some of the hardship and deprivation portrayed so powerfully by John Mulgan in Man Alone. The Apostle Paul said that he had learned to be abased and to abound (Philippians 4:12). He also said that if he had food clothing and shelter, with these he would be content (I Timothy 6:8).

Many people have lost a great deal in Christchurch and their lives have been shaken to the core. One of the most encouraging things amidst it all, however, is to see civil society rise to the surface. By “civil” we mean a society where people are treating each other with respect, care, and concern. Where neighbour is reaching out to neighbour. The news media has been full of such incidents. It has been encouraging. Our parents taught us that these are some of the things that really matter.

Stuff has published an open letter of thanks from a Japanese father who has apparently lost his daughter. It encapsulates the blessings to be counted amidst the tragedy.

To the people of New Zealand and Japan:

My daughter was involved in the earthquake disaster while studying English in Christchurch in order to fulfill her ambition of becoming a medical worker able to work globally. I have come to New Zealand hoping for a slim chance of her survival, but she has not been found and the situation seems desperate. It was such a consolation for me to have met you who helped and co-operated with us, the families of the victims, with such warm hospitality and encouragement. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to you all.

Here in Christchurch, I have seen how the people and the government of New Zealand have come together to work to rescue the victims immediately after the earthquake occurred and the government proclaimed a state of emergency. Having witnessed your dedication with my own eyes, I now understand why my daughter decided to study in Christchurch, 5600 miles far from my country.

Meanwhile, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of Japan in New Zealand, and the Consulate in Christchurch have been coordinating their collective efforts to cope with this situation and supporting the families of the victims. I am impressed and thankful for their painstaking efforts even when the families sometimes become impatient and demanding.

The agent that introduced my daughter to the language school in Christchurch has been supporting us by keeping in touch 24 hours a day, updating news every 1 to 2 hours, and continuously cheering us up. My daughter’s friends have also encouraged us by every possible means. Since arriving in Christchurch, many volunteers have been providing us with empathetic care. Staff members dispatched from the agent have been with the families, sympathetically listening to us and supporting us even when we lose ourselves in worry. The media staff members understand the feelings of the families of the victims well, and are reporting the central issues of the disaster. Even though my daughter has not been rescued yet, I think she is really lucky and happy because she is supported by so very many kind-hearted people.

Most of all, I am overwhelmed with gratitude toward the rescue teams from various countries, who have been engaged in the relief activities with their high technical capability and noble-minded motivation. I sincerely hope that those who are engaged in the relief effort will not be involved in secondary disasters.

I thank you all again for your unremitting efforts and unceasing empathy, which we will remember forever.

We ought not to take such civility in Christchurch for granted. There have been plenty of occasions in human history where it has been absent and suffering has been multiplied many, many times over. C. S. Lewis once remarked that Hell will be a collection of starving people seated at a long table with just a knife, each trying to eat peas . No civil society there. There have been times when hell has come on earth as neighbour has turned upon neighbour, and parents have devoured their children, and children their parents.

How thankful we ought to be that Christchurch has been spared this, and that civility and neighbourly love have been so strongly to the fore. We thank God that this has made the tragedy not as bad as it might have been.

To highlight the blessings which we are to count in Christchurch, contrast the following description of daily life in a city amidst tragedy as described by an eye-witness:

By mid-summer, as the blistered and jagged hills sprouted forests of fly-blow crucified cadavers, the city within was tormented by a sense of impending doom, intransigent fanaticism, whimsical sadism, and searing hunger. Armed gangs prowled for food. Children grabbed morsels from their fathers’ hands; mothers stole the tidbits of their own babies. Locked doors suggested hidden provisions and the warriors broke in, driving stakes up their victims’ rectums to force them to reveal their caches of grain. If they found nothing, they were even more ‘barbarously cruel’ as if they had been ‘defrauded.’ Even though the fighters themselves still had food, they killed and tortured out of habit ‘to keep their madness in exercise’. (The city) was riven by witch-hunts as people denounced each other as hoarders and traitors. No other city . . . ‘did ever allow such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, since the beginning of the world.’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem, The Biography, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2011), p.4.

The city, Jerusalem. The time, AD70. The occasion, the Roman siege led by Titus. The situation, a people who had lost all civility. The result, hell upon earth.

The Lord said of that time that it would be “a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall.” (Matthew 24:21).

Given that Jerusalem in AD70 teaches that of which we humans are capable, we thank God for a very, very different spirit manifest in Christchurch in AD2011. It is very beautiful to see–and not to be taken for granted.

Hat Tip: Keeping Stock