Insight on the News
Cause of Crime
“America’s declining public concern with ‘character training’ over the past 60 years may have played a significant part in our recent high crime rates,” writes political science professor Reo M. Christenson in The Wall Street Journal.
The professor was there referring to suggestions offered by James Q. Wilson of Harvard University, who claims that the “exceptionally high and sustained levels of crime” in mid-19th century U.S. cities was curbed by a many-pronged effort to promote “character development.” Popular literature, public schools and churches at the time emphasized the value of moral restraint and self-discipline, he says.
Similarly, English scholar Christie Davies observes, according to the professor, that Britain’s high rates of crime in the mid-19th century diminished on account of the now much-maligned Victorian moral crusade, which stressed “honesty, industry, willingness, conscientiousness, punctuality, sobriety and a sense of responsibility.”
But “in more recent years,” continues Christenson, “cultural emphasis has focused upon self-expression, spontaneity, tolerance, individualism and personal freedom. . . . As for the public schools, they have sharply downgraded character training.” The result? “Crime rose steeply in the 1960s and has remained at alarming levels ever since,” he concludes.
It is of interest that the Bible puts emphasis squarely on discipline and restraint: “Train up a boy according to the way for him; even when he grows old he will not turn aside from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) But there are other factors contributing to the escalation of crime and delinquency in these critical times, as is clearly shown in scriptures such as 2 Timothy 3:1-5 and Revelation 12:12.
Evidence for Creator
For more than 40 years now, German mathematician Maria Reiche has been roaming the desert plain about 280 miles (450 km) south of Lima, Peru, examining the famous Nazca Lines. These lines make up intricate geometric and animal drawings so large that they are recognizable only from the air. Some of the miles-long lines were drawn so precisely that they do not deviate for more than four yards per mile, or 0.2 percent.
Reiche and other scientists are trying to find evidence, not of how or by whom, but of why the lines were drawn. “I once doubted myself and thought I was looking for sense in something senseless,” she said. “But it can’t be senseless. There is too much work in it.”
The precision and grand design of the Nazca Lines bear testimony to the existence of intelligent designers, and scientific minds are trying to understand their purpose. What, then, about the far greater precision and grander design in the universe? Do they not logically testify to the existence of a superior intelligent Designer, a Creator God? Yes! In this, Christians come to the same conclusion as did the apostle Paul: “For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship.”—Romans 1:20.
Fleeting Glory
“For Russians, Brezhnev Is a Fading Memory,” says a recent headline in The New York Times, barely a year after his death. Brezhnev’s tomb is in Red Square, a granite bust sits on it, and streets, places and a city are named after him. “But where it matters—in the hearts and minds of most Russians and their leaders—he seems virtually a forgotten man,” says the news report. As for the leaders, the report says, “Mr. Andropov mentioned him once or twice on public occasions, usually in passing, and then, since the turn of the year, not at all.”
Appropriate is the Bible’s counsel: “Put no faith in princes, in any man, who has no power to save. He breathes his last breath, he returns to the dust; and in that same hour all his thinking ends.”—Psalm 146:3, 4, The New English Bible.