Pratt: We work toward peaceful solutions, but we never quite arrive

Spiritual rot soon results in intellectual and cultural rot, invading all aspects of what we once regarded as historic development of a great nation built of disparate groups of people from throughout the world.

Some came as the British emptied their debtor prisons to serve out their sentence as servants for a designated time in the New World. Others came on slave boats out of Africa, captured by rival tribes and sold in shiploads to go wherever the market developed.

It might surprise some people to learn that enslavement was common, based not on race, but on power. People groups grew and generally developed various monarchies or strong-man rule on every continent. Wherever mankind appears, some form of governing also arises out of necessity.

With the discovery of the Americas, distance offered an opportunity for a new way of governing, not the inheritance of family line or even the common military, but a government designed by and for the good of the people.

It wasn’t easy, and it was not perfect, but it offered opportunity undergirded by a sense of freedom longed for, but seldom realized. In North America, a new form of rule developed, a government by the people and for the people. But sadly, slavery still existed. Eventually, the better angels prevailed among the people, and a war was fought between the North and the South that acknowledged the wrong of slavery.

Add to that the issue of the American Indian tribal situation, a native culture that did not celebrate the arrival of these European invaders. Survival ultimately meant assimilation as individual land ownership became the rule. We work toward peaceful solutions, but we never quite arrive. Still, it is a great and deadly error to fail in our appreciation of the American achievement.

Even more than ships, airplanes and now the tease of space travel, the real revolution that is changing the world most drastically is instantaneous communication – sometimes for good and too often for ill.

We cannot forget the successful splitting of the atom and the frightful weapon that mid-century America developed to call a halt to World War II. The entire world trembled at the knowledge of a great abyss awaiting the touch of those bent on destruction. We should be fearfully respectfulful.

Suddenly, the graphic word pictures of worldwide destruction in an ancient collection of writings by Jewish prophets long ago sound not only possible, but probable. Meanwhile, the pot of violence simmers around the world, fed by Satan’s messengers. The biblical visions of Ezekiel and the imagery of the final days of the world described in the book of Revelation ring with veracity today because we have in human hands the weaponry to begin that process of annhilation.

But there is comfort and promise as well in the ancient literature: “Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous; He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face.” (Psalm11:6-7 NAS).

Remember that today’s technologies often used for evil have also been employed for much progress and good in the world.

John, the writer of those final biblical pictures, also advises believers: “If someone says, ‘I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20 NAS)

Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: We work toward peaceful solutions, but we never quite arrive