Friday, July 10, 2020

What are the “big issues” or “most important dangers” for humanity in these times? Tim Suttle gives them five names in We’re Dealing With Five Crises at the Same Time:

• Pandemic – The pandemic and the already unhealthy host society the virus attacked.

• Economic injustice – The employment crisis unleashed by that pandemic that pushed our inequitable economy from chronically ill to terminally diseased.

• The racial crisis fueled by police barbarism and institutionalized hatred.

• Threatened Democracy – The democratic crisis embodied, but hardly initiated, by a mad demagogue in the highest office in the land, who behaves more and more like a fascist.

• Climate Change – The environmental crisis, hovering over the others, threatening everything that breathes.

This question touches some of the bases of our civilization. Asking it feels like entering a dark cave of unknown depths. Already after the first corner you get into a swarm of bats and are tempted to give up. But let’s listen to the Good News and hold it firmly as our torch in the dark. It helps us to watch around us without fear and face our sins, call them by their name and put them in a row in front of us.

Analyzing our problems is not yet a solution, but it makes me open to hear what God wants me to do.